Voluntary Disclosure and Capital Market. Insights from Italian Industrial Listed Companies.

This research highlights principles and content of an effective voluntary disclosure, deriving them from analysts’ dissatisfactions and major guidelines on forward-looking plan. Using the Likert scale, the research evaluates the quality of all types of voluntary information published by Italian industrial listed companies, investigating richness and depth on topics such as strategic intentions, business model, action plan, key value drivers, and expected results, both at the corporate and at the strategic business unit levels. The objective is to trace a relation between the quality of voluntary disclosure and the consensus gathered on financial market, in terms of new capital collected by equity or financial debt, and a lower cost of debt. Findings indicate that very few companies adopt forward-looking plans as a tool for voluntary disclosure, and often their quality is inacceptable. However, financial market does not always penalise the uncertainty and even the lack of voluntary disclosure.