The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) requires companies it regulates to include disclosures about the board’s role in risk oversight in the annual proxy statement to shareholders. The SEC does not mandate specific content or actions that boards should perform as part of their risk oversight responsibilities, leaving the nature of activities and extent of those disclosures to the discretion of the reporting entity. This study examines whether these disclosures contain substantive information reflective of the effectiveness of the organization’s risk oversight. We find that organizations disclosing more specific information (but not simply more information) about board risk oversight practices are associated with firms independently assessed as having the strongest management and governance processes. These findings suggest that these firms use the discretion provided by the SEC’s disclosure rule to provide substantive and potentially value-relevant information for stakeholders about the entity’s risk management processes and board risk oversight activities.

美国证券交易委员会（SEC）要求其监管的公司在向股东提交的年度委托书中，包括有关董事会在风险监督中作用的信息。SEC并未规定董事会应将其履行的特定内容或行动作为风险监督职责的一部分，而是由报告实体自行决定活动的性质和披露范围。这项研究检查了这些披露是否包含反映该组织风险监督有效性的实质性信息。我们发现组织公开了更多具体信息（但不仅仅是更多有关董事会风险监督实践的信息）与独立评估为拥有最强管理和治理流程的公司相关。这些发现表明，这些公司利用SEC披露规则提供的酌处权，为利益相关者提供有关实体的风险管理流程和董事会风险监督活动的实质性且可能与价值相关的信息。