Indonesian Journal of Sustainability Accounting and Management, 2018, 2(2), 121–135 ISSN 2597-6214 | e-ISSN 2597-6222 http://unpas.id/index.php/ijsam Copyright © 2018 Indonesian Journal of Sustainability Accounting and Management The Effect of Firm Internal and External Characteristics on Risk Reporting Practices among Malaysian Listed Firms Mazurina Mohd Ali 1 , Ruzzana Abu Bakar 2 , Erlane K. Ghani 3 * 1 Universiti Teknologi MARA, Faculty of Accountancy, Shah Alam, Malaysia 2 Universiti Teknologi MARA, Faculty of Accountancy, Shah Alam, Malaysia 3 Universiti Teknologi MARA, Accounting Research Institute, Shah Alam, Malaysia *Correspondence to: Erlane K. Ghani, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Accounting Research Institute, Level 12, Menara SAAS, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Shah Alam, 40250, Selangor, Malaysia. E-mail: erlanekg@yahoo.com Abstract: This study examines the effect of firm internal and external characteristics on risk reporting practices among the Malaysian public listed firms. Specifically, this study focuses on three internal characteristics namely, duality of board leadership, the presence of stand-alone risk management committee, and length of CEO tenure and external characteristics namely, competition, debt governance and auditor quality on the risk reporting practices among the Malaysian public listed firms. Using, content analysis on 200 top public listed firms in Bursa Malaysia, this study shows that one of the external characteristics namely, debt governance significantly influence risk disclosure among the Malaysian public listed firms. This study however, shows that none of the internal characteristics influence risk disclosure among the Malaysian public listed firms. The findings of this study provide further understanding on the factors influencing risk disclosure of Malaysian public listed firms. Keywords: firm internal characteristics, firm external characteristics, risk disclosure, public listed firms, Malaysia. Article info: Received 25 April 2018; revised 26 June 2018; accepted 18 July 2018 Recommended citation: Ali, M. M., Bakar, R. A., & Ghani, E. K. (2018). The Effect of Firm Internal and External Characteristics on Risk Reporting Practices among Malaysian Listed Firms. Indonesian Journal of Sustainability Accounting and Management, 2(2), 121–135. DOI: 10.28992/ijsam.v2i2.53 Introduction Corporate disclosure has been remarkably criticized following the collapse of Enron in the early 2000s and the financial crisis in the East Asian region in mid-1997. Professional bodies and associations around the world, especially in the developed countries such as United States (US) and United Kingdom (UK), government agencies, politicians and as well as individuals, had begun to challenge the current systems and contribute ideas attempting to avoid similar incidents from recurring. The root of a great number of the corporate failure is due to the insufficient disclosure in the annual reports, comparability issues (Zeff, 2007) and lack of transparency especially the clarity in risk reporting (Dobler et al., 2011). Lack of consistencies and insufficient risk-related information in the annual report limit the investors in identifying the firms' risk profile and interpreting the annual report (Zeff, 2007). Of consequence, this restricts the investors’ consideration on risk-related factors when making investment decisions (Mokhtar & Mellett, 2013).