Abstract Tmeliness is one of the most important qualitative characteristics of accounting information. Managerial discretion on the disclosure time will reduce timeliness. This paper theoretically analyses the existence of managerial discretion in the course of annual report disclosure, and tests the factors affecting the discretion. The empirical result indicates that the discretionary period which extends 84 days accounts for 70% of the whole disclosure period of annual report. Audit opinion and earnings news are the main factors that affect the managerial discretion on the time of disclosure. The effect of governance of board of director on the managerial discretion is very limited. In order to avoid the crisis of abusing annual report discretion, the regulatory departments should reinforce the building of information disclosure system and corporate governance institution of the board of director. Meanwhile, the managers' ethical sublimity is called on to strengthen the timeliness of annual
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Received: 16 January 2009
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