The Effect of Information Content of Integrated Business Reports on the Credit Decision Making at Jordanian Commercial Banks

The current paper tested the effect of the information content of integrated business reports in enabling credit officers at Jordanian commercial banks to assess the company’s capability to create value, and the effect of the so mentioned on credit decision making in the Jordanian environment. To achieve this objective, the researcher presented one of Jordanian companies’ financial reports through a proper comprehensive questionnaire, distributed over a sample of credit officers at Jordanian commercial banks, through three alternatives of accounting disclosure which include: traditional financial reports that express financial disclosure only, traditional financial reports in addition to non-financial information in the form of separated reports, and then integrated business reports (consolidated financial and non-financial information). The number of the analyzed questionnaires was 95. Arithmetic means, standard deviations, Simple Liner Regression analysis and One Way ANOVA analysis have been applied to test the research hypotheses and achieve its objectives. The results showed that there is an effect for the disclosure of (only financial information through traditional financial reports, non-financial information through separated reports, and consolidated financial and non-financial information through integrated business reports) in order to take the decision of credit at Jordanian commercial banks. The research also showed that there are significant differences between the variables of the decision of granting loans according to the three disclosure alternatives. It is noted that the information content of the integrated business reports had the greatest effect than the other two alternatives on the decision of granting credit.


Introduction
The current practices of financial reports focus only on the financial performance, which in turn does not contribute to deliver the company's aspiration and doesn't meet the stakeholders' needs of information.Many studies showed that traditional financial reports don't provide sufficient information to their users, thus, depending solely on the financial information of these reports leads to presenting an uncomplete image of the company's reality.Therefore, the financial disclosure only is not enough to fulfill the needs of stakeholders (Al-sha'ar et al., 2015).Thus, many companies started disclosing non-financial information in the form of an independent report that includes the environmental and social aspects within the company's financial report.However, this did not meet the stakeholders' needs of information as it does not present an integrated image of the economic, social and environmental aspects, and it does not provide a comprehensive view about the company's financial performance.Based on this, the idea of integrated report came to light; it depends on consolidating between the financial and non-financial information within a homogeneous context that provides an integrated comprehensive view about the economic, social and environmental performance's aspects at the same time (Ghosh & Anne, 2012;Vanzyl, 2013).
Integrated business reports are considered as a tool for the disclosure of financial and non-financial performance of companies', as they include all the information related to the environmental, moral, economic and social concepts, in addition to commitment to governance, clarifying strategic plans and the board of directors' orientations.The information content of integrated reports help to create new opportunities for investment and increase company value on short and long terms (Abbas, 2017).
To grant banking credit has a great role in activating different economic and social sectors as it has become impossible for the production, distribution and trading operations to be done without credit.This requires banks to provide the suitable credit through a rationalized credit policy in which they balance between the returns and risks, it also takes into account achieving the aspired profitability, as well as fulfilling these sectors' needs such as the industrial sector (Al-Barzanji & Husain, 2017).Deloitte (2012), Monterio (2013) and Owen (2013) indicated that the Insufficiency of the traditional reports or even the separated reports in assessing companies' performance, predicting their potential future performance, and assessing their ability to create value was the main reason to apply and prepare integrated business reports that meets the needs of stakeholders.Whereas, Cohen et al. (2012), Latridis (2011) and Barakeh (2017) indicated that the disclosure of financial information only in not enough to make decisions, this led to the importance of the availability of additional non-financial information that helps in making decisions that cannot be expressed financially, and should be included within the financial report such as the information about the company's sustainability.Ismail (2016) pointed out that the information content of traditional financial reports does not meet the needs of stakeholders for decision-making.Thus, resent developments that came along with the emerge of integrated business reports were accompanied with the occurrence of several practices of financial reports, among which we can recognize three types: First includes traditional financial reports limited to financial disclosure only.Second is represented by financial reports with addition of non-financial information in the form of a separated report, in other words, unconsolidated with the non-financial information.Third is about the integrated reports that include non-financial information consolidated with financial information.
All what have previously been mentioned shows the importance of information content of integrated business reports, therefor; accounting disclosure of integrated business reports contents for sake of highlighting fulfill stakeholders' needs of information.The research problem is represented by studying and testing the effect of each of the previously mentioned types over the credit decision making at Jordanian commercial banks, and the contribution of these reports in enabling credit officers at Jordanian banks to build an integrated image about the company's performance and assessing its capability of creating value, moreover; measuring the ability of these companies creation of cash flows that enables the company to repay the loan and meet the credit's commitments within the legal period.
Due to the growing of integrated business reports importance about the traditional financial reports for various stakeholders, especially for credit officers at the Jordanian banks when taking the credit decision, the current research aims at measuring the effect of information content of integrated business reports in improving the decisions made by different stakeholders especially credit officers at commercial banks through identifying the faults in traditional financial reports, identifying the concept and nature of integrated financial reports, and identifying the effect of (the disclosure of financial information only through traditional financial reports, the non-financial information through a separated report about the traditional financial reports, and the financial information consolidated with non-financial information through integrated financial reports) in credit decision making at Jordanian commercial banks.
The importance of this research comes from the need of the Jordanian environment for improving the financial reports' quality and presenting sufficient integrated information about the financial and non-financial performance within a strategic perspective that meets the benefits of all parties, which in return will increase the awareness of the concerned members and companies about the importance of the commitment toward issuing such reports and testing the effect of informational content of integrated business reports in enhancing the decisions made by credit officers in Jordanian commercial banks.
The remaining parts of this paper are organized as follows: section 2 presents a review of the recent, related literature.Section 3 is about the theoretical framework and the research's hypotheses while section 4 describes the research methodology and tests the hypotheses.Then, the last section underlines the main conclusions of the present study and gives recommendations.

Previous Studies
Many previous studies handled the issue of information content of the integrated business reports as well as taking the credit decision.Nevertheless, there was scarcity in attending their mutual relationship.Musa (2010) sought recognition of accounting information role in rationalizing credit policies whereupon the study was applied on the commercial banks working in Gaza Strip.This study showed that banks inquire about clients through banking risk program and identify the expected sources of financing and income of the client before acquiring the credit.It also showed that some banks do not ask for accounting information in some cases for not being reliable in the presented reports or because of unavailable or insufficient accounting information.Azá crate et al., (2011) pointed out the role of the integrated business reports in presenting the indicators of achieving sustainable development.This study counted on the content analysis approach where it revealed the existence of a group of integrated indicators that should be explained by the board of directors about the concept and nature of achieving sustainable development.The study also stressed the necessity of showing the business company ability to connect among the economic, environmental and social capitals through linking the indicators of each division and its nature.
Al-Zibdiyeh and Al-Thnebat (2012) tested effect of the external auditor's report in taking credit decisions at Jordanian commercial banks.In order to realize the objectives of this study, a questionnaire and the experimental study approach were used whereby 132 questionnaires were distributed on the credit officers working at Jordanian commercial banks in addition to virtual data attached to the different types of auditor report.For the sake of analyzing the study data the tests of Chi-Square, Wilcoxon and Kruskal-Wallis were used.The study indicated that the auditor's report is one of the important information sources on which the credit officer relies in taking credit decisions.The study also revealed statistically significant differences among conservative auditor's report types in affecting the credit decision.
Al-shikhli (2012) identified the main factors of the banking credit decision at Jordanian commercial banks in addition to analyzing those factors, assessing their relative importance and identifying the obstacles that affect taking the credit decision.This study pointed out that there is a significant role of the factors of (client's financial status, his personal traits, and the pattern of credit policy of the lending bank) in taking the banking credit decision at Jordanian commercial banks.The study of Isabel et al. (2013) aimed at recognizing and comprehending the content of the integrated business reports in the light of the societal culture level to identify their effect among the users of financial statements in recognizing and comprehending the content of the integrated business reports.The study followed the content analysis approach where it presented several results such as, there is an effect of the national culrtural system which represents the values and attitudes of those reports users of stakeholders, and that integrated business reports provide significant information about the strategic plans, governance, level of commitment to its principles and the environmental commitment in addition to the financial performance, personnel data, wages, and sustainability.Rensburg and Botha (2014) revealed the effect of integrated business reports on the financial and non-financial performance through the information provided by those reports.This study showed the existence of a positive effect of integrated business reports in the state of South Africa on the financial and non-financial performance.It also stated the ambiguity of using those reports by all the stakeholders.The study assured that there is a limited number of stakeholders who care for those reports as a main source of information as some stakeholders believe that traditional reports are still the core and reference of decision.Havlová (2015) examined the general trend in the adoption of integrated business reports over the years (2010 -2014).This study depended on the analytical approach to measure general trend toward using the integrated business reports through the companies under research.It showed an increasing importance for those reports in all those companies because of their significance in providing a ground for comparison and decision support.Ismail and Ismail (2015) investigated the necessity of improving the measurement and the control of the credit risks for borrowers through placing a suggested accounting model which may help to measure and assess the creditworthiness of the client accurately and then identifying the credit risk of the client correctly which develops the process of taking the decision of granting the banking credit.This study depended on (Panel Data Analysis) which studies the data of several companies that wish to receive loans from an Egyptian bank.It revealed the presence of a direct correlation between the creditworthiness level of the applicant client and each of the client's industrial organization stability, competitive capacity of the client's organization, operational performance results of the client's organization, cash flow of the client's organization, financial attitude of the client's organization, internal management and control of the client's organization, financing and facility structure of the client's organization and the due balances of the client's organization.Ismail (2016) studied and tested the effect of the information content of the integrated business reports in enabling credit officers to assess the company's capability to create value and the effect of this process on the credit granting decision in the Egyptian environment.The research included a theoretical and experimental study to achieve this goal.In this study ANOVA is used to investigate the presence of a significance difference in the loan granting decision according to the three alternatives.The researcher also used Kruskal-Wallis test to verify the difference in the three cases.As well as it pointed out the presence of significant differences in the credit granting decision according to the different disclosure cases.It also revealed the existence of significant differences among the variables of the loan granting decision according to the three disclosure alternatives.Rivera et al., (2017), showed the sufficiency and inclusiveness of disclosure of the integrated business reports in terms of providing the required information for users.The level of the disclosure level included in the integrated business reports content was studied through looking into the international experimental program of the international council of the integrated business reports which was distributed upon 91 companies.This study pointed out that disclosing the internal audition was of the most important items included by the integrated business reports reaching a high disclosure level and that it differed from one company to another due to the difference of the kind of industry.While Abbas (2017) showed the dimensions of the information content of the integrated business reports, as well as handled the suggested dimensions and indicators that could be added to develop the dimensions of the balanced score card of performance after modifying its dimensions to suit the goal of using it to assess the accounting disclosure of the integrated business reports content after dividing this content to several dimensions or aspects to assess the disclosure of each of the integrated business reports out of a set of multiple reports.This study resulted that: there is argument concerning the mechanism of preparing and publishing the integrated business reports making them compulsory as they need more organizational controls in different countries to make the integrated business reports of international practices in all the companies listed in stock markets throughout the coming years.Mahmoud (2017) studied and identified the nature and objectives of the integrated reports and their contents as well as their accommodation to the Iraqi environment, in addition to studying and testing the effect of the information content of the integrated reports on the competitive capability of the industrial establishments in Iraq.This study pointed out that using the integrated reports realizes important benefits in the business environment including creating improvements in operations, reducing costs, increasing the potentiality of the establishment to receive a capital with reasonable cost, ensuring the commercial license and better management of the risks related to the reputation of the establishment in addition to enhancing the transparency and organizational clarity of the establishment which contribute in supporting the competitive capability.Muhammad (2017) studied and revealed the importance of accounting information in the process of credit decision rationalization and showed the reasons and treatment of delinquency in banking credit.To achieve this study objectives, the analytical descriptive approach and depended on a random sample of the employees of Khartoum Bank incorporating a sample of (63) employees are used.This study showed the availability of significant and beneficial accounting information which may lead to rationalizing the credit granting decision.Moreover, the provision of information in time leads to rationalizing the credit granting decision.
The above mentioned studies indicate the importance of information content of the integrated business reports as most of them agreed on the presence of an effect of the disclosure of financial and non-financial information in creating value for the company and consequently influencing different stakeholders.Therefor the researcher believes that there is a gap in the studies that handled using the effect of information content of the integrated business reports in credit granting decisions.This research is attempting to cover this gap by conducting a field study to investigate the viewpoints of credit officers about the importance of information content of the traditional financial reports and the integrated business reports when granting the credit in addition to studying the differences in the importance of those reports through the variables of loan granting decision represented in the acceptable maximum limit of loans, the ratio of the loan to assets and equipment, the minimum interest rate and the average granted credit period, taking into consideration that the Jordanian environment lacks similar studies about integrated business reports, thus, what gives distinction to this research is being applied in a different environment and that it sought to achieve additional objectives different from said studies.

The Theoretical Framework of the Study and the Hypotheses Development
To develop the hypotheses of the research, this section handled the clarification of the integrated business reports and their information content and analyzing their relationship to credit granting decision.

Integrated Business Reports
The financial accounting aims at extracting and communicating information to the stakeholders in companies to help them take the decisions that achieve their wishes.Although such information is usually financial in nature and has all the qualitative features, it does not provide sufficient vision to the overall performance of the company (Ali, 2012).Therefor; there is a need to develop the traditional disclosure practices as the traditional financial statements alone are inadequate to communicate information to the stakeholders to measure the comprehensive performance of the company because they do not provide much information useful and appropriate for the different stakeholders and do not include the information related to the social and environmental aspects in addition to many other different information as they simply focus on the information related to the financial aspects (Hussainey & Najjar, 2011;Sharaf, 2015).Abbas (2017), Ismail (2016) andAl-Sha'ar et al., (2015) pointed out that the traditional financial reports lost their ability as a tool to disclose all the information that fulfills the needs of the stakeholders, therefor; they do not reflect the actual performance of the company.Those reports have to be changed to include non-financial information beside the financial information especially those related to social responsibility and sustainable development to realize the purposes of the stakeholders whether lenders or investors.Consequently, disclosing non-financial information will lead to producing high quality information reports and creating value for stakeholders.
Therefor this requires a consensus of all data users interested in producing, communicating and using accounting information on the necessity of changing the contents of the traditional financial reports to provide information about performance in its three aspects; the economic, the social and the environmental, through increasing the disclosure of non-financial information to improve the quality of the reports and to increase their reliability in addition to the development of the form and content of the financial report through incorporating the strategic dimensions, sustainability and governance which contribute in providing comprehensive information about the company's performance and presenting an integrated view about the company's capability to create value for the stakeholders (Aji &Hossain, 2016;Hahn & Michael, 2013;Bachoo et al., 2013).
Therefore, there was a need to create intrinsic modifications in the form and content of the financial report to achieve the wishes of stockholders by means of a report through which the financial and non-financial information can be consolidated.This report appeared through what is called integrated business reports.The idea of these reports depends on collecting the separated reports related to the dimensions of strategy, sustainability and governance in one report with the traditional financial reports consolidating between the financial and the non-financial information (Blesener, 2011).
The idea of integrated reports received an increasing approval from companies in many countries.Therefore, many companies started producing integrated reports about their performance and the companies' contribution in value creation.Those reports also received wide acceptance from stakeholders and in this frame the International Integrated Reporting Committees (IIRC) was established in August 2010 including in its membership each of the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), International Federation of Accountants (IFAC), World Business Council For Sustainable Development (WBCSD) and Global Reporting Initiative of Sustainability which asserted that integrated reports combine financial and non-financial information which relate to the environmental, social and economic control and performance (Adams, 2015 ;IIRC, 2011).
The International Integrated Reporting Committees (IIRC, 2013) defined the integrated business reports as concise and brief communication about the know-how of organization, governance, performance and future expectations strategies in the course of the external environment which leads to create value on the short, medium and long term.As well as Mahmoud (2017) indicated that integrated thinking is the basis of building the future of preparing integrated reports in establishments as a transformation in the methodology of establishments in connection to business modules and value creation.
The researcher believes that the traditional financial reports are subject to international accounting standards and legal legislations in the country where they are prepared and that they organize the methods of recognition, exhibition, measurement and disclosure of the information they include and that the methods of their preparation, form and content are subject to an organized method among all companies.As for the non-financial data in the integrated business reports, they do not go under any standards and legislations that govern and organize the methods of their exhibition, measurement and disclosure as well as identifying the quality of information which should be included, therefor; their methods of exhibition, measurement and disclosure are affected by personal judgments and differ from one company to another.
To reduce the variation in preparing integrated reports, the IIRC report established a set of general rules that may contribute in shaping an agreeable framework among all the parties producing and using the integrated business reports as the IIRC report confirmed that the integrated reports are based on two basic pillars which are: (Ismail, 2016;Eccles & Daniela., 2014;IIRC, 2013).1) Six guiding principles that govern preparing and publishing integrated business reports: -Strategic focus and future orientation to show the company's capability to create value.
-Combining information (communicating information) and linking between work and results to highlight the company's ability in creating value.
-Relative importance and conciseness by providing concise information to concentrate on the important issues related to the company's capability to create value.
-Credibility through listing all the intrinsic issues whether positive or negative.
-Comparability and consistency which means presenting information in a way that makes it comparable with other companies consistently from year to year.
2) The elements of information content of integrated business reports: -Governancebusiness modelexternal environmentrisks and opportunitiesperformance -The foundations of preparation and assessment -risks and opportunitiesorganization.
Therefor; these principles must be consistent with International Financial Reporting Standards, so that integrated business reports are presented in a consistent manner as in traditional financial reports.These reports provide an overview of how the company works and help stakeholders to assess the company's capability to create value in the short, medium and long term.
Although many of those interested in the field of integrated business reports agree on the importance and necessity of including non-financial information in the financial report, they didn't agree on the nature and the concept of this information due to differences in the vision, strategy and goals in addition to the differences in the nature of operations.Jahjouh (2017), Isabel et al., (2013), Al-Fouli (2005) and Abdulkareem ( 2003) focused on different types of non-financial information that can be included within the integrated report such as: information about the company's policies and objectives, information about products design and development, information about the company's market quota, stakeholders, factors that affect the company's activity, the company's future situation, the company's board of directors, the company's future vision, the number of workers within the company, wages' volume, research and development costs, information about the company's performance, expansion plans and product development, important information about the company's strategic plans, governance, its commitment to its principles, the environmental commitment in addition to the financial performance, employees' data, wages and sustainability.
South Africa is considered the first who imposed on companies listed in the stock market submitting integrated business reports.In the light of this experience, integrated business reports must include the following (Ismail, 2016;Abu Jabal, 2014;Deloitte, 2012): -Financial information disclosure through: traditional financial reports, interpreting the factors that affects the companies' revenues, accounts auditor report, abnormal items, segmental financial information, financial investments related to the expected energy, in addition to capital expenditure and research and development expenses.
-Non-financial information disclosure: includes information related to the company's sustainability such as: -The company's strategy (Report of the company's CEO, clarifying opportunities, benefits and risks).
-The company's features register (the company's vision and mission, the brand, the company's main products, values and believes, the markets in which the company operates).
-The involvement of stakeholders (a list of the dominant stakeholders, the key issues for the stakeholders).
-Governance (the governance structure of the company, board of directors' committees, delegation of authority to senior executives, the selection of the board of directors and its committees, the role of the board of directors in identifying economic, environmental and social impacts, risks and opportunities, wages' policies).
-Economic performance indicators (the financial statements prepared according to IFRS standards, economic values like revenues, operation costs, detained profits and payments of shareholders, accounting policies, wage rates, market and future quota of the company, report about the company's ability to future investment and investment plans).
-Environmental performance indicators (commitment to environmental laws and legislations, the operation costs of environment reservation activities, the used amounts of water and energy, the size of the waste produced by the company, the environmental certificate granted to the company, discovering new sources of energy).
-Social performance indicators (advantages granted to workers, policy of wages, the employees' health and safety, pension and health care payments fund, the rate of annual training hours for each employee, the efforts exerted to support charity in the local community, the safety and quality of products, sorting out social problems).
As a result, the researcher believes that providing the financial and non-financial information within one report and the adoption of companies to the integrated business reports are necessary for stakeholders including creditors and the assessment of the company's capability to create value.Consequently, predicting the future value of the company needs non-financial indicators in addition to the financial indicators.

analyzing the relationship between the information content of the integrated business reports and the credit granting decision and deriving the research's hypotheses:
Ismail (2016) and Al-zibdiyeh & Al-Thnebat (2012) indicated that credit decisions are of the most important operations at the commercial banks, whereas the importance of granting credit is at the level of the bank itself, where the banking credit is considered to be the riskiest investment but, at the same time the most attractive investment to the bank's management.Despite the high risks that characterize the banking credit, it is deemed to be of the important sources of revenues and profits of the bank, without which banks lose their role as a financial mediator in economy.Considering the risks encountered by banks when granting credits to companies, the creditors have to do sufficient investigations for all the company's information and analyzing such information before taking the lending decision.Integrated business reports provide financial and non-financial information that may help creditors to judge the company's capability to create value and consequently to specify it ability of remittance on due dates.Campbell & Richard (2011) and Al-Ardi (2009) showed that the information content of the integrated business reports including financial and non-financial performance indicators help stakeholders and creditors to assess the company's ability to maximize its value and assess the company's management efficiency in exploiting and operating the available economic resources to maximize the value.The main role of management is not only working to achieve profit but the goal should be maximizing the value.These studies asserted that creditors turned to be more interested in non-financial information especially the information related to the different aspects of the company's sustainability.Such information provides them with indicators about the potential growth of the company in the future; it also helps in better predictions of the future cash flows.Therefor; banks should depend on non-financial information connected to the risks faced by the company and the impact of those risks on future cash flows, growth opportunities and profit levels.Chakrabarty (2011), Campbell & Richard (2011) and IIRC (2013) indicated that the indicators and measurements of the company's capability to create value from the commercial banks perspective are represented by a set of financial indicators and non-financial indicators and consequently, the financial indicators are represented in profitability, return on investment, level of liquidity, ability to remittance and improvement in financial performance, while the non-financial indicators are represented in information about the company's sustainability including information about governance, risks, the environmental, social and moral aspects, in addition to the development and classification of workers and risks and methods of risk management.Dhaliwal et al. (2012) pointed out that banks are more prepared to grant credit to companies with easy terms according to their reputation and their environmental and social performance level.These factors increase the value of the company because of their impact on different values such as sales and finance, and are connected to litigation risks.Whereas, Steyn (2014) and Ngwakwe (2012) indicated that it is better to disclose non-financial information away from the annual financial reports because of the difference of the nature and goals of each of the financial and non-financial information.Companies deal with huge amounts of economic, social and environmental information and it is hard to extract good indicators to judge performance considering the diversity and enormity of information.
Eccles & Daniela (2014), Bebbington & Larrinaga (2014) and gurvitsh & Sidorova (2012) studies prefer consolidating financial and non-financial information through integrated reports with the justification that this will provide a comprehensive image of the overall performance of the company.Melloni et al. (2017) and Morhardt (2010) showed that the integration of the financial and sustainable discloser positively affects the decisions of stakeholders compared to the disclosure of each of the financial, environmental, social and governing performance separately.
Eccles & Daniela (2014) and Mio & Marco (2013) asserted that disclosing non-financial information in separation from financial information does not provide a comprehensive framework to the report users as it does not connect between the companies strategy and its financial, social, environmental and governing performance and so risks cannot be assessed which negatively affects the credit decision, furthermore; consolidating the financial information with the non-financial information limits the ability of stakeholders to predict the company's capability to create and maintain value.
As a result of the argument related to the discloser methods, the importance of this research stems in studying and testing the effect of information content for each alternative of disclosure alternatives according to the information content of the integrated business reports in taking credit decision at Jordanian commercial banks.The three hypotheses of the research can be stated as follows: First hypothesis: there is a statistically significant effect of disclosing the financial information only through traditional financial reports in taking credit decision at Jordanian commercial banks.
Second hypothesis: there is a statistically significant effect of disclosing the non-financial information through separate reports in taking credit decision at Jordanian commercial banks.
Third hypothesis: There is a statistically significant effect of disclosing the financial information consolidated with non-financial information within integrated financial reports in taking credit decision at Jordanian commercial banks.
Al-Berzenji & Husain (2017) limited the factors that affect the credit granting decision with the following: -Factors related to the customer: represented by the personal factors, capital, his ability to meet obligations, the guarantees provided by him, and circumstances surrounding his activity.
-Factors related to the credit: that can be limited by the following: the size and the type of the required credit, duration, the type of the required credit, the program and sources of payment, the amount of credit, and the interest rate.
By Analyzing Ismail (2016), Eccles & Daniela (2014) and Mio & Marco (2013) studies, it became clear to the researcher that there are significant differences in the effect of three previous cases over the credit granting decision's variables, especially when it comes to consolidate the financial information with the non-financial information in the form of an integrated business report.Therefor; the forth hypothesis can be stated as follows: Forth hypothesis: there are statistically significant differences among the information disclosure alternatives (traditional financial statements, traditional financial statements and non-financial separated information, consolidated financial and non-financial information (integrated business reports)) attributed to the credit granting decision's variables.

Research Methodology and Hypotheses Testing
To achieve the research objectives, the research methodology presents the applied tools and procedures, the research's population and sample, the statistical analysis results and testing the research's hypotheses.

Applied Tools and Procedures of the Research
The research depended on the method of applied study in collecting data.The research's questionnaire was designed based on Abbas (2017), Yusof (2017), Ismail (2016) and Milhem (2010) studies The questionnaire is composed of the following three sections: The first section: This section includes items that measure some of the demographic and general information of the participants in this research, such as personal data, specialization and scientific qualification.
The second section: includes questions related to the hypotheses from (1 -3).This section is composed of three parts: the first part includes (5) questions that measure the first independent variable; the disclosure of financial information.The second part includes (6) questions that measure the second independent variable; the disclosure of non-financial information.The third independent variable; the consolidated financial and non-financial information is measured by all of the questions through combining the items of financial and non-financial information together.The third part includes (6) questions and they measure the variable related to credit granting decisions.
The third section: includes questions related to the forth hypothesis along with information about the company of ready-made concrete and construction supplies.The researcher presented the company's financial reports within a questionnaire through the three alternatives of accounting disclosure.They include: -Traditional financial reports expressing financial disclosure together with the supplementary notes of the financial statements, and the auditor's accounts report.
-Traditional financial reports, in addition to non-financial information in separated report.
-Integrated reports (consolidated financial information and non-financial information).
The researcher presented the questions to the credit officers at the end of each of the previous cases as follows: In the light of the previous financial report, and as a credit officer, knowing that the company has presented its previous data for the purpose of obtaining a loan of 10 million Jordanian Dinars with the guarantee of property, machinery and equipment, please express your opinion in the following: -What is the maximum amount of the loan that can be accepted?-What is the ratio of loan to assets and equipment?
-what is the minimum interest rate required?-What is the credit period for the repayment of the loan?

Population and Sampling
The research population is represented by all credit officers at Jordanian commercial banks.A questionnaire has been distributed over the commercial credit departments; (110) questionnaires have been distributed over the research population (the credit officers at Jordanian commercial banks) in order to reach the sample's aimed size.( 98) Questionnaires have been retrieved (89%).Three questionnaires have been excluded due to incomplete answers.As a result, the number of the questionnaires used for the research analysis purposes were (95) questionnaires.

Validity and Reliability Test
To verify the research's tool validity, the questionnaire was arbitrated by experienced professors specialized in this domain, and consensus observations were taken into account.To test the research's tool reliability in testing the research hypotheses and achieving its objectives, Cronbach's Alpha coefficient was used.Cronbach's Alpha coefficient is usually used to measure the research's tool reliability in order to test the hypotheses.The previous table shows that the reliability coefficients of the research areas and the instrument as a whole were greater than (0.70) (Hair et al., 2006), this indicates a high level of reliability of the research instrument, which means the possibility of depending on the questionnaire results and reassurance to its credibility in achieving the study goals.-Educational level: Table (2) shows that the highest percentage of respondents is of those who hold a bachelor degree; (64) credit officers with a percentage of (67.3).The number of respondents who hold post-graduate certificates was ( 27) credit officers.In other words, (95.8) percentage of credit officers hold a degree of bachelor or more advanced certificates.This indicates that credit officers have a sufficient academic qualification which enables them to answer the questionnaire's questions properly.

Sample Characteristics
-Scientific specialization: From the table we see that the highest percentage of respondents is of those who are specialized in accounting and financial and banking sciences; (73) credit officers with a percentage of (76.9%).This is a high logical percentage as for most of the workers in the field of credit are specialized in accounting and financial and banking sciences.This indicates that the study sample acquires the needed knowledge that enables them to read and understand the integrated and traditional financial reports.
-Experience: The table shows that the highest percentage of respondents is for those who have ten years of experience and more; (65) credit officers with a percentage of (68.5%).This is a high percentage and it indicates that most of the workers in the credit field have good experience in granting loans, in other words; credit officers are well qualified to answer the questionnaire's questions properly.

Descriptive Analysis
Tables (3 -6) Tables provide a descriptive presentation of each of the research questions, showing the mean, the standard deviation and rank of each individual question.The results of these tables can be presented as follows: Table3.Descriptive statistics for the questionnaire items related to the level of the importance of only financial information disclosure through traditional financial reports for the credit decision-making.Table (3) shows that the means of the sample members' approval on the items related to the level of the importance of the disclosure of financial information only through traditional financial reports in order to make the credit decision ranged from (3.73 -4.14).Item (1) concerning "the disclosure of the financial position items" was ranked first with mean of (3.14) and with a high level.Item (2) concerning "The disclosure of income statement items" was ranked last with mean of (3.73) and with a high level.The total mean of the level of disclosure of financial information only through traditional financial reports was (3.86) and with a high level.
Table (4) shows that the means of the sample members' approval on the items related to the level of the importance of the disclosure of non-financial information through separated reports ranged from (4.14 -4.68).Item (4) concerning "economic performance indicators" was ranked first with mean of (4.68) and with a high level.Item (5) concerning "environmental performance indicators" was ranked last with a mean of (4.14) and with a high level.The total mean of the level of disclosure of non-financial information through separated reports was (4.45) and with a high level.Table (5) shows that the means of the sample members' approval on the items related to the level of credit granting decision ranged from (4.09 -3.71).Item (6) concerning "the decision of credit granting and its success depend on the credit personnel capability to understand the credit policy instructions and its application within the commercial banks" was ranked first with a mean of (4.09) and with a high level.Item (2) concerning "the bank sets a limit for the credit easy terms granted to customers and shall not allow to exceed it" was ranked last with a mean of (3.71) and with a high level.The total mean of the level of credit granting decision was (3.92) and with a high level.Table 6 shows the increase in the acceptable maximum limit upon the availability of traditional statements and consolidated non-financial information (integrated business reports) with mean of (8300000) and a standard deviation of (173.30).The ratio of loan to assets and equipment increased according to the three cases with the values of 49.6 , 52.7 , 56.6 respectively, whereas the minimum interest rate decreased in the case of the availability of integrated business reports with mean of (0,8.38) and a standard deviation of (0.29).The loan average period increased according to the three cases with the values of 4.6, 4.8, 4.9 respectively.

Hypotheses Testing
The firs, the second and the third hypotheses of the research were subjected to the Simple linear Regression (SLR) at (α≤0.05) and the results were as follows: First hypothesis: "There is a statistically significant effect of disclosure about the financial information only through traditional financial reports in taking the credit decision at Jordanian commercial banks".The results show that the correlation coefficient (R=0.423)indicates the presence of a positive correlation between the disclosure variable about financial information through traditional financial reports and the variable of taking the credit decision, and that there is an effect of the independent variable (disclosure about financial information through traditional financial reports) on the dependent variable (taking the credit decision) which is statistically significant where the calculated value of (F) reached at (20.232) which is statistically significant at (sig=0.000) that is less than (0.05).They also show that the value of (R 2 =0.179) indicates that (17.9%) of the variance in (taking the credit decision) can be explained through the variance in (disclosure of financial information through traditional financial reports), which proves the validity of the first hypothesis.
This agrees with the Muhammad (2017), Rensburg & Botha (2014) and Al-Zibdiyeh & Al-Thnebat (2012) studies which affirmed that the availability of accounting information through traditional reports is still the core and reference of the decision and the main source of information for stakeholders bringing importance and utility that may lead to rationalizing the decision of credit granting.However, this disagrees with the study of Musa (2010) which stated that some banks do not ask for just accounting information for the reason that they do not trust the submitted statements.
Second hypothesis: "There is a statistically significant effect of non-financial information disclosure through separate reports in taking the credit decision at Jordanian commercial banks".The results show that the correlation coefficient (R=0.364)indicates the presence of a positive correlation between the disclosure variable about non-financial information through separated reports and the variable of taking the credit decision, and that there is an effect of the independent variable (disclosure about non-financial information through separated reports) on the dependent variable (taking the credit decision) which is statistically significant where the calculated value of (F) reached at (14.170) which is statistically significant at (sig=0.000) that is less than (0.05).They also show that the value of (R 2 =0.132) indicates that (13.2%) of the variance in (taking the credit decision) can be explained through the variance in (disclosure of non-financial information through separated reports), which proves the validity of the second hypothesis.
This agrees with the Steyn (2014), Dhaliwal et al., (2012) and Ngwakwe (2012) studies which indicated that banks have become more prepared to grand credits to companies with easy terms according to their reputation and the level of their environmental and social performance.Such factors increase the value of the company where it is better to disclose the non-financial information in separation from the annual financial reports because of the difference between the nature and objectives of each of the financial information and the non-financial information.
Third hypothesis: "there is no statistically significant effect of the disclosure about the financial information consolidated with the non-financial information (integrated financial reports) in taking the credit decision at Jordanian commercial banks".The results show that the correlation coefficient (R=0.498)indicates the presence of a positive correlation between the disclosure variable about financial information consolidated with non-financial information through integrated financial reports and the variable of taking the credit decision, and that there is an effect of the independent variable (disclosure about financial information consolidated with non-financial information through integrated financial reports) on the dependent variable (taking the credit decision) which is statistically significant where the calculated value of (F) reached at (30.648) which is statistically significant at (sig=0.000) that is less than (0.05).They also show that the value of (R 2 =0.248) indicates that (24.8%) of the variance in (taking the credit decision) can be explained through the variance in (disclosure of financial information consolidated with non-financial information through integrated financial reports), which proves the validity of the third hypothesis.
This agrees with the Melloni et al., (2017), Havlova (2015), Sharaf (2015), Bebbington & Larrinaga (2014), Isabel et al., (2013), Sidorova (2012) and gurvitsh & Morhardt (2010) studies which indicated that, the integrated business reports provide important information about strategic plans, governance, commitment to principles and environmental commitment and in addition to the financial performance and the data of employees, wages and sustainability.Thus, banks became more prepared to grant credits to companies with easy terms according to their reputation and the level of their environmental and social performance as such factors increase the value of the company and consequently consolidating the financial information and the non-financial information through integrated reports has positive effect on the stakeholders' decisions.
Forth hypothesis: "There are no statistically significant differences between the alternatives of information disclosure (traditional financial statements, traditional financial statements and separated non-financial information, consolidated financial and non-financial information (integrated business reports))" attributed to the variables of credit granting decision.
In order to test the forth hypothesis and identify the presence of differences at (α≤0.05),One Way ANOVA test was used.Table (10) shows the results.*The effect is statistically significant at (α≤0.05) Table 10 shows the significance of the difference among the three cases according to the variables of the loan granting decision at a significance level of 5% through F values and (Sig=0.000)values.To investigate any of the three cases of those differences, Multiple Comparisons and Least Significant Difference (LSD) test were calculated.
Table 11 shows significant differences between the variables of the loan granting decision according to the disclosure alternatives (traditional financial statements, traditional financial statements and separate non-financial information, consolidated financial and non-financial information (integrated business reports)).
The third disclosure alternative realizes the best effect on the credit granting decision whether in terms of the acceptable maximum limit of the loan or in terms of the ratio of the loan to assets and equipment, and also in terms of the interest rate and the average loan period, which proves the validity of the forth hypothesis.
This agrees with the Ismail (2016), Elsaldt & Worthington (2013), Mio & Marco (2013), Al-shekhali (2012), and Thompson & Cowton (2004) studies which indicated that, credit officers need extra information to assess the risks that may affect the companies' ability to repayment and that disclosing the financial, strategic, economic, environmental and social information enhances the decisions of credit officers when taking the credit decision, and that there is a significant role to the variables of credit granting decision in taking the banking credit decision at Jordanian commercial banks.

Conclusions and Recommendations
The theoretical study reveals that the integrated business reports meet the needs of the financial reports users as they increase the levels of disclosure and transparency which limits the mismatch of information and helps all the financial reports users in the best assessment of the company's performance and its ability to sustainability and expansion.Moreover, the theoretical study exhibited the concern of creditors with the financial indicators such as profitability and the investment revenue, and the non-financial indicators such as governance, risks and environmental, social and moral aspects.
The applied study revealed the effect of disclosure about the financial information only through traditional financial reports in taking the credit decision at Jordanian commercial banks, and the presence of an effect of the disclosure about the non-financial information through separate reports in taking the credit decision at Jordanian commercial banks, and the presence of an effect of the disclosure about the financial information consolidated with the non-financial information within integrated financial reports in taking the credit decision at Jordanian commercial banks.In addition, it showed that the information content of the integrated business reports (consolidated financial and non-financial information) had the greatest effect than the other two alternatives (traditional financial statements, traditional financial statements and separated non-financial information on the variables of the credit granting decision.This is clear through the rise of the acceptable average maximum limit of the loan, the increase of the ratio of the loan to the assets and equipment, the decline of the minimum level of the interest rate and the increase in the average loan period. This study recommended that market organizers to issue instructions in the light of the recommendations and guide lines of the local and international vocational and academic organizations to expand the annual report of the company through incorporating the company's strategy and the environmental and social factors and risk management (integrated business reports), which could lead to improving communication with stakeholders and helping in taking different decisions of which are the investment and finance decisions, in addition to the concern with spreading awareness among all the parties of producers and integrated business reports users about the contents and objectives of those reports considering their significance in maximizing the market value and creating value for companies.Furthermore, it recommends that accounting curricula at the business faculty should include detailed segments that contain the nature and content of the integrated business reports and their relationship to financial accounting, administrative accounting and auditing, and their role in creating value to different stakeholders.The researcher also recommends conducting more studies in relation to the integrated business reports and linking them to the investment decision, maximizing the shareholders fortune, improving the company's performance or account auditing.

Table 1 .
Results of the reliability analysis

Table 2 .
Demographic characteristics of the research sample

Table 4 .
Descriptive statistics for the questionnaire items related to the level of the importance of the disclosure of non-financial information through separated financial reports for the credit decision-making.

Table 5 .
Descriptive statistics for the questionnaire items related to the credit decision-making

Table 6 .
Descriptive statistics for the variables of the credit decision-making

Table 7 .
Simple Linear Regression results for first hypothesis

Table 8 .
Simple Linear Regression results for second hypothesis

Table 9 .
Simple Linear Regression results for third hypothesis

Table 10 .
One Way ANOVA Results