Determinants of the publication time of financial statements: An implementation in Borsa Istanbul

Financial information users make financial decisions by using information obtained from financial statements presented by businesses. In order for financial information users to make correct financial decisions, this information must be in accordance with the need and reality. At the same time, the information presented should be understandable, verifiable, comparable and timely. Delays in the presentation periods of the financial statements increase the uncertainty in investment decisions. The aim of this study is to determine the factors affecting the financial reporting publishing time of the enterprises. The data set of the research consisted of 121 businesses that were continuously traded in Borsa Istanbul (BIST) between the years 2009-2021. In this context, 1,573 firm-year data belonging to 13 years covering the working period were used. The analysis of the research was carried out with the Flexible Generalized Least Square (FGLS) model, which is one of the panel data analysis models, taking into account the characteristics of the data set. In the analysis, nine independent variables were used to determine the factors affecting the financial reporting publication time. When the findings in the analyzes are evaluated, it has been revealed that the business size, profit/loss statement in the current period, operating in the financial sector, being included in the Corporate Governance Index, return on assets and return on equity are the factors affecting the publication time of financial reporting. In this context, it has been determined that large enterprises, enterprises that declare profit in the current period, enterprises operating in the financial sector, enterprises included in the Corporate Governance Index, enterprises with high return on assets and return on equity, publish their financial statements in a shorter time.