Preparers’ perspective of organizational capital disclosure in annual reports: Evidence from listed firms on the Colombo Stock Exchange

The purpose of this study is to investigate the agendas behind discretionary structural capital disclosure in annual reports to attract financial investments into their firms, and to understand whether disclosures are ‘factual’ or ‘constructed’. The study analysed annual reports of the top 30 listed firms by market capitalization on Colombo Stock Exchange using latent content analysis over two consecutive years to identify organization capital disclosed using 20 pre-defined items of structural capital. It then conducted 11 semi-structured interviews with directors of each firm representing a different industry sector to examine the agendas behind the content in structural capital disclosure in annual reports. This study found no evidence of firms manipulating constituent behaviour, but rather responding to resolve conflicts arising between the constituents and the firm. The agendas behind disclosure practices differed among industry sectors.