The effect of voluntary disclosure of historical and forward-looking non-financial information on sustainability performance

The present study examines the effect of voluntary disclosure of historical and forward-looking non-financial information on sustainability performance and contributes to the existing literature by providing evidence of a definite relationship between the level of voluntary disclosure and sustainability performance in Iran. For content analysis, a checklist tool consisting of 23 components and 186 indicators was used to describe the disclosure criteria. In order to achieve the purpose of the research, the required data of 910 year-company observations (7 years and 130 companies) resulting from the screening process by systematic elimination of companies listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange, have been used in a descriptive-correlational manner from sources such as corporate board reports, financial statements, resource management software and new results with the implementation of content analysis test and multivariate linear regression model. The results showed that there is a positive and significant relationship between voluntary disclosure of non-financial information, historical and forward-looking non-financial information and sustainability performance. These findings indicate that the motivation of companies to disclose voluntary information, especially about the Iranian economy, is very important, because companies must grow economically and therefore their need for capital is high. This study also showed that the level of corporate disclosure continues to increase during the study period.