Assessment of Strategy Disclosure Drivers in Annual Company Report: A Meta-Synthesis Analysis

Disclosure of strategy in annual reports by companies is a method of transmitting information related to the performance of the company's strategy and its effects on stakeholders, and identifying the drivers and factors affecting it is considered important due to the important role of this type of reporting in making correct and informed decisions. The purpose of this study is to investigate the drivers of strategy disclosure in the companies’ annual reports. Revealing a company's corporate strategy to the public is seen as reliable because managers prioritize safeguarding their reputation. This commitment to transparency encourages a company's leadership to make meaningful investments in the strategy. While disclosing forward-looking statements, like the progress of business strategies' implementation, in annual reports offers insight into the company's direction from management to financial analysts, it can also entail certain costs by potentially harming the company's competitive position.
 
In 2021, this study conducted a comprehensive qualitative analysis and meta-synthesis of prior research findings. A total of 191 articles were extracted and analyzed, and after analyzing the desired components, 26 articles were finalized. After identifying and determining the components, Shannon's entropy method was used to validate the meta-synthesis findings. Therefore, a survey was conducted among 15 experts who were selected using the snowball sampling method to comprehensively classify the conceptual codes. Experts were engaged to validate the elements associated with the extracted codes. Consequently, a table depicting the codes and components was presented to them, and their insights and opinions were solicited on this matter. Due to the absence of specific requirements and standards for preparing strategy disclosure reports in Iran, it appears that individuals working in this field may lack adequate theoretical knowledge on the subject. Therefore, we tried to use the opinions of experts who are theoretically familiar with the subject. These individuals were experts, professors, and researchers who had conducted research in the areas of reporting and capital markets over the past few years. They had accumulated a minimum of 15 years of experience in the fields of accounting and finance.
 
The findings indicated that strategy disclosure in annual reports is classified into 12 components and 32 codes. Among the identified components of a company's vision, the mission statement, statement of strategy, naming, scope, and strategic reference were deemed more significant than other components.
 
This research, by comprehensively examining the factors affecting strategy disclosure, tried to provide a new perspective in examining the drivers of annual reports and improve the awareness of the stakeholders in identifying the drivers and factors affecting this type of reporting.