Empirical study of compliance with International Accounting Standards (IAS-1) by stock exchange listed companies in Bahrain

This research investigates the extent to which the disclosure requirements of International Accounting Standards (IAS-1) Presentation of Financial Statements are complied with or exceeded, for the 37 listed companies in Bahrain, claiming to use IASs. It also compares the compliance practices of large and medium size companies for ten disclosure items. The study concludes that there has been a high degree of compliance with IAS-1 requirements, in respect of 'components of financial statements', 'comparability', compliance, and stock information. For the other items, such as 'disclosure', 'reclassification', 'dividends', 'description of reserves', 'timeliness', 'going concern' and 'disclosure of income statement', there is a greater to fair degree of compliance. Furthermore, the study found statistical differences between large and medium size companies' compliance practices in respect of timeliness and description of reserves. Large size companies have a greater tendency to disclose more information for these two items. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]