The Impact of Accounting Disclosure According to Integrated Business Reports on the Value of the Company and the Cost of Capital: An Empirical Study in Iraq Stock Exchange

Recent years have witnessed many developments that extended to an increase in the information needs of users of financial reports. This resulted in the inability of financial reports to provide an adequate view of the overall performance of companies due to their focus on the financial aspect only, which is no longer sufficient to meet the needs of investors and other stakeholders, which increased with it the demand by stakeholders for non-financial information, and consequently the need to develop the accounting information system with its outputs represented in reports and financial statements to keep pace with the rapid development and changes in the contemporary business environment. This study aimed at analyzing the impact of accounting disclosure according to integrated business reports on maximizing the value of the company and the cost of capital in Iraq Stock Exchange using a sample of 27 observations in the time period from (2016) to (2019) distributed among the sectors (communication, services, agriculture, trade, industry, tourism and hotels). The study followed the descriptive analysis using descriptive statistics methods represented by (arithmetic mean, standard deviation, coefficient of variation) to form a clear picture of the nature of the study variables, then the methods of inferential statistics represented by (Pearson correlation coefficient, multiple linear regression) to test the three hypotheses of the study. Descriptive statistics indices were calculated for the data of the independent variable (accounting disclosure according to integrated business reports), which was measured by three quantitative indices including: (disclosure of corporate governance, disclosure of social responsibility, disclosure of future information), and dependent variables (cost of capital, value of the company). The study concluded that accounting disclosure indices according to integrated business reports contribute to achieving many benefits as a result of what disclosure provides according to integrated business reports from an overview of the company's strategy and the extent to which it is related to the company's ability to maximize value, which is effectively reflected on the quality of the company's profits and the reduction of its cost capital.