Determinants of enhanced risk disclosure of JSE Top 40 Companies: the board risk committee composition, frequency of meetings and the chief risk officer

Abstract

Risk disclosure practices have received increasing attention in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis. This study investigated possible determinants relating to the composition of the board committee responsible for risk management, the frequency of board risk committee meetings and whether the company employs a chief risk officer, which could manifest in an enhanced level of risk-related disclosure. Based on the possible determinants identified in the literature, nine hypotheses were developed in order to investigate which of these determinants relate to an enhanced level of risk disclosure by the selected companies. The first required integrated reports of non-financial companies in the Top 40 index of the JSE Securities Exchange were investigated in this study. Regarding one area of investigation, namely the level of risk management disclosure, it was found that the disclosure of companies whose risk committee met more frequently and the disclosure of companies that employed a chief risk officer, were of a relatively higher standard. With regard to the other area of investigation, namely the level of risk identification and mitigation disclosure, no clearly significant determinant of enhanced disclosure was identified.

Keywords: risk management; risk committee; risk disclosure; King III; risk identification and mitigation; board of directors; audit committee; integrated report