An examination of the extent to which State-Owned Entities disclose their strategy, in their integrated reports

Abstract

The increase in corruption within State-Owned Entities (SOEs) and the recent headlines about State-Owned Entities failing to fulfil their mandate and having to constantly require financial assistance from government, have brought the need for SOEs to be accountable tot he general public to the fore. This is attributed to the fact that, members of the public are both the financiers of these organisations (through taxes) and they also utilise services provided by these organisations. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the extent to which SOEs are accountable to their stakeholders, which includes members of the general public and specifically looking at strategy which is an important factor to consider in determining whether the entity has a plan for the future and also enables stakeholders to make informed decisions. In order to be able to meet the objective of this study the following research question was addressed: To what extent do state-owned entities disclose their strategy in their annual reports? The study can be applied by standard setters specifically in the public sector and will also be valuable to the public sector governance overseers, as their main mandate is to ensure accountability by State-Owned Entities and this study highlights key elements of accountability. The main contribution of this study is for the benefit the general public, as SOEs affect the lives of all citizens directly and indirectly. A quantitative research methodology was used in conducting this research and data was collected by analysing the annual reports of the SOEs. The findings of this study revealed that SOEs disclose, at the maximum, sufficient information on their strategy although they do not provide a well-defined and comprehensive disclosure of this strategy which could be due to preventing competitors to imitate their strategy and to maintain their competitive edge