Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the association between firms’ characteristics and the level of forward-looking information in management commentaries of Italian listed companies. The firms’ characteristics investigated in the study are their size, profitability and leverage. The methodology of the study is content analysis of management commentaries of the Italian companies listed on the FTSE All-Share Index for the year 2010. The relationship between some firms’ characteristics and the disclosure of forward-looking information is examined using multiple linear regression analysis.  The results of univariate and multivariate analyses indicated that profitability has significant negative association with the levelof forward-looking information. Conversely, firms’ size and leverage variables arefound to have an insignificant relationship with the level of forward-looking information.

Key words: Forward-looking information, firm size, profitability, leverage,disclosure, management commentary, Italy.