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How do companies to be listed deal with the voluntary disclosure of their business model? Is it true that firms with greater intellectual capital resources and technological innovation endowments are less prone to full disclosure? This paper aims to examine the choices of voluntary disclosure of the business model made by three Italian manufacturing companies in initial public offering prospectuses. The objective is to explore whether any differences exist and may be related to the type of innovation underlying the firms' business model. A series of interviews with the top management allows to deeply understand the business model of each company. A content analysis allows to measure the level of disclosure and identify the strategic concepts of the business model and their relevance. The study provides evidence that companies with a business model based on technology-push and design-driven innovation have a lower propensity to the full disclosure of their intangible resources, particularly of those based on knowledge as some could be also invisible. The paper contributes to the ongoing debate on the role of business and financial reporting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The new taxonomy 2014-11-17 mandates Italian unlisted companies to codify in XBRL also the notes to the financial statements. Building on previous literature, the aim of this study is to analyze the impact of mandatory XBRL extension to the financial statements notes on financial reporting quality of the Italian unlisted companies. We focus our analysis on the taxonomy usage and the customizations made by the filers. Our data represents the very first sample of Italian financial statements filed in fully XBRL format. Despite the significant changes affecting the process of financial statement preparation, we find that Italian unlisted companies have accepted and acknowledged the potential benefits and limits of the new taxonomy. When dividing the notes section between textual blocks and tables, we find a clear preference for the filers to use textual blocks for both, standard and abbreviated financial statements. Overall, we find that filers of both financial statement types use extensively the customizations offered by the taxonomy. Moreover, for the filers of abbreviated financial statements, we show that they tend to use not only more table customizations but also tables that are proper for the standard financial statements, thus offering higher voluntary disclosure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the interplay between governance and disclosure in an agency setting, featured by concentrated ownership and high insider shareholders representation in the board. In this context, agency conflicts happen between large controlling shareholders and minority outside investors, with risks of private benefits exploitation. We regressed a voluntary disclosure index on seven governance variables related either to the board structure and functioning. The empirical evidence is provided by the Italian stock market. Our results suggest the presence of a complementary relationship between governance and disclosure. Diligent monitoring activity is associated with greater transparency to the outside. The findings are consistent with the view that internal and external control tend to be present at the same time, since the presence of one of them reduces the incentive for the controlling shareholders to limit the other. The empirical evidence also show that larger boards are not detrimental to outside shareholders, with regard to voluntary disclosure. The study can contribute to the understanding of the relationship between governance and disclosure in a particular agency setting. They might be of interest to practitioners and regulators, insofar as they are consistent with calls for more disclosure requirements in this agency setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]