The Impact of Firm's Characteristics on the Degree of Integration in Financial Reports “An Empirical Study on the Egyptian Listed Companies

Integrated reporting may become a 21st century revolution in corporate reporting. Therefore, this research aims to study the impact of firm's characteristics on the degree of integration in financial reports on the Egyptian listed companies, specifically the researcher investigates the impact of firm's characteristics (using six variables, they are: board size, board independence, audit committee size, audit committee independence, company size, and profitability) on the degree of integration in the financial reports which is measured by an index of integrated disclosure consisting of five sub-groups of 69 items. The study investigates hypotheses on a sample of 99 Egyptian listed companies for the year 2017. Using regression analysis, the research provides evidence of a positive effect of the independence of the audit committee on the degree of integration in financial reports. This result means that in the Egyptian environment the more independent audit committee members the more effective the committee is in performing its oversight role, and reduces the influence of management, and then enhance the level of disclosure and increase the degree of integration in financial reports. Also, the empirical results support the presence of a positive impact of company size on the degree of integration in the financial reports and perhaps this is due to the fact that, in light of the Egyptian environment, large companies possess huge resources that enable them to do more activities and provide more products, while at the same time being able to bear the costs of more disclosure, in addition to its desire to increase the degree of integration in the financial reports in order to give legitimacy to its activities. While the results indicate that there is no effect for each of the size of the board of directors, the independence of the board of directors, the size of the audit committee, and the profitability of the company on the degree of integration in the financial reports