Determinants of Human Resource Accounting Disclosures: Empirical Evidence from Vietnamese Listed Companies

This paper aims to analyze whether company characteristics are potential determinants of human resource accounting (HRA) disclosure practices by Vietnamese listed companies. It examines the human resource disclosure level of 204 companies by content analysis of these companies’ annual reports. The study has relied on a multiple linear regression to test the association between a number of corporate attributes and the extent of human resource disclosure in companies’ annual reports. The extent of human resource disclosure was measured using unweighted human resource disclosure index. The explanatory variables considered in this study were firm size, firm age, profitability, leverage, industry profile, and auditor type. The results revealed that the most influential variable for explaining firms’ variation in human resource disclosure is firm size followed by firm age and profitability. Thus, it can be concluded that firm size, firm age and profitability are major predictors that may affect the variety of HRA disclosure practices on firms listed in the Vietnam Stock Exchange. However, neither industry profile nor auditor type seems to explain differences in human resource disclosure practices between Vietnamese listed firms, indicating that company’s industry profile and auditor type are not a matter for the company to disclose HRA information.