Legibility of notes to the financial statements of the brazilian publics companies

Abstract

In order to identify the determinants of the legibility of the notes to the financial Statements (NEs) of the Brazilian companies listed in B3, observing the period before and after adoption of international accounting standards, a quantitative study was developed, using data from years of 2005, 2010 and 2015. The sample comprised 205 and 164 companies, varying according to the statistical tests applied. The motivation of the study is based on the fact that the adoption of international accounting standards provides an interesting context for comparative studies and it is considered that readability impacts on the activities and decisions of users of accounting information. It can be verified that NEs in 2010 and 2015 have a lower level of readability compared to 2005, indicating that the adoption of international standards has led to a reduction in the readability of NEs. It was also found that NEs, when evaluated by the Flesch index, are considered difficult to read, a result that is consistent with international studies. Regarding the determinants, it was obtained evidences that size and performance, impact on the readability metrics of NEs of Brazilian publicly companies, with size being related to the fact that the complexity of the business leads to larger and less legible reports, whereas performance is related to the obfuscation hypothesis, in which companies with poor performance tend to overshadow their results, producing less readable reports.