User Perception on Disclosure: A Comparative Analysis of Public and Private Banks in Ethiopia

Abstract

This study investigates the views and perceptions of users on disclosure and the extent of disclosure by the Ethiopian banking sector. The data collected from 509 respondents in different groups of information users were analyzed using percentage, mean and kruskal-wallis H test. The result shows that most of the user groups regard annual reports as the most important source of information and income statements as an important section of annual reports. The majority of the user groups attached the highest ranking for the relevant attribute for the annual reports and delay in publishing annual reports as the most serious problems. The users of information perceive that a public bank discloses more information with better quality than private banks and the analysis of annual reports also disclose the same results. The Kruskal-wallis H test shows that there was a significant difference among user groups on the frequency of annual report usage, purposes of annual reports, sources of information, the significance of the problems, and sections of annual reports.