Sustainability report disclosure moderating effect on investment decision, financial accounting variables and share price relationship: A case of Saudi Arabia

Resumen

The main objective of this article is to examine the mitigating effects of the publication of the sustainability-report on investment decisions and the share-price relationship. In addition, we examine whether the sustainabilityــreport indirectly effects the financial-accounting variables’ valueــrelevance. We regress GLS with random effects using a balanced sample of 240 observations from the first quarter of 2014 to the last quarter of 2018, including all banks listed in Saudi Arabia. According to the results, the direct coefficient between sustainability reporting, investment decisions and share prices is negatively significant before and after including moderation interaction variable. While the moderated interaction coefficient of the publication of the sustainability-report on the relationship between investment decisions and share prices is positively significant. The direct coefficient between the financial accounting variables and the share-price is positive and significant. Whereas the moderate interaction coefficient of sustainabilityــreport publication on financial accounting variables and share-price is negatively significant. These results suggest that sustainability-reporting information is considered for the benefit of investors and sustainability reporting data is used to supplement accounting information in decision making. The findings also display that investors appreciate the other and complementary disclosures of the financial information provided by the sustainability-report and that this disclosure has had a positive impact on the share-price.