Family- related Determinants and Financial Disclosure via Twitter: Evidence form the Saudi Firms

This study extends the findings of previous studies that were concerned with voluntary financial disclosure through examining Saudi Arabian firms’ adoption of Social Media (SM) networks in disclosing their financial information. This study aimed to achieve two main objectives. The first objective was to investigate the Saudi Arabian non-financial listed firms’ level of financial disclosure via Twitter as one of the SM networks. The second objective was to explore the potential impact of family – related determinants on the Saudi Arabian non-financial listed family firms’ level of financial disclosure via Twitter in 2020. To test the association between family determinants and financial tweets, this study used an Ordinary Least Square (OLS) multiple regression model.
The findings reveal the sampled Saudi Arabian firms’ low level of financial tweets disclosed on their Twitter accounts. Further, three out of the five family variables have an impact on financial tweets.  From this study’s findings it can be concluded that, on the one hand, there is a negative association between the family member on the firm’s board and the number of financial tweets. On the other hand, there is a positive association between family leadership and family cross-directorship and financial tweets.  By examining the impact of family variables on financial disclosure via Twitter, this study contributes to the accounting studies and paves the way for more studies in this field.