Questions

1. Financial statement analysts increasingly demand more non-financial information from the companies they evaluate. Such requests include: detailed disclosures about companys long-term strategic initiatives, formal financial plans and budgets, planned capital purchases and likely strategic business acquisition and/or corporate alliances. However, when accounting rule makers propose disclosure rules requiring such information, corporate managers indicate their reluctance to provide such disclosures.

Required:

1. Suggest reasons why management might be reluctant to provide such financial statement disclosures.
2. What is your opinion, should companies be required to publicly disclose, i.e. in their formal 10K/annual report, their corporate strategies, annual profit plans, and details about proposed business alliances, among other internal long-term senior management discussions? Please explain your answer, briefly.