To what extent audit committee overlapping is considered beneficial or harmful for the users of corporate narrative reporting? Does audit committee overlapping improve the quantity and quality of forward-looking disclosures (FLD)?

These are the research questions addressed by Prof. Dr. Khaled Hussainey of the University of Portsmouth, UK in his research study entitled “Audit Committee Overlapping and Forward-looking Disclosure: An Untold Story of Omani Financial Institutions” presented in a webinar organized by the Staff Development Committee of the Department of Business Studies on September 23, 2020 at 12 PM through Microsoft Teams.

Prof. Dr. Khaled Hussainey was invited to present and share the highlights of his research. His study reveals that audit committee overlapping and overlapped audit committee chair positively affects the quality of forward-looking disclosure.

Further, his study supports that overlapped audit committee members with financial expertise and with multiple directorships positively affects the quantity and quality of forward-looking disclosure. Moreover, his study provides strong evidence that there is no relationship between the quantity and the quality of FLD. Each measure represents its own meaning of disclosure.

Thus, disclosure quantity should not be used as a proxy for disclosure quality. A practical and social implication from his scholarly work could be that regulators should consider the positive impact of different measures of overlapping on the quality of FLD and modify the corporate governance code accordingly.

The question and answer forum was used as a platform for the participants to explore in details about the background of the study, concepts used in the research, research motivations, the research method used and elaboration of the key findings and conclusion. Participants were engaged and inspired to pursue similar research studies in the future.

Dr. Ramesh, Head of Studies - Accounting and Finance delivered the closing remarks and appreciated the scholarly work of the guest speaker and the collaborative efforts of the organizers.