WASHINGTON—Securities regulators plan to explore changes for public companies’ quarterly earnings reports, following President Trump’s summer request for them to take up the issue.

The Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday said it would vote next week on asking companies and investors for feedback on the “nature and content of quarterly reports and earnings releases.”

Mr. Trump asked the SEC in August to study less frequent earnings reporting as a way for companies to have “greater flexibility and save money.” The president’s request came after a meeting with corporate executives at his golf course in Bedminster, N.J.

Some business leaders have said quarterly reporting promotes a short-term approach to investing, which includes pressure from activist investors such as hedge funds.

SEC Chairman Jay Clayton has said that he doesn’t expect quarterly reporting to change for most firms, particularly large ones, because the market expects detailed financial information on a regular basis. But he has expressed openness to possible changes for firms with revenue under $1 billion. Those companies may find quarterly reporting to be a compliance burden and have investors who don’t want or need such frequent information.

“I don’t think any of us want our very important public service enterprises to be run on a short-term, quarter-to-quarter basis,” Mr. Clayton said at an accounting conference earlier in November.

Business groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have advocated reviewing the decades-old quarterly earnings regime, arguing it undermines a long-term focus among public companies and investors. For investors, such a change could reduce the amount of information available to them about companies’ performance.

One question the SEC may ask in its release, up for a vote next Wednesday, is whether quarterly guidance about expected earnings from companies unnecessarily drives expectations for investors, and whether that guidance could be pared back. Earnings guidance is voluntary and isn’t required by the government.

Among possible changes, the SEC could also reduce the number of disclosures required in quarterly reports, which some companies view as excessive in an age when company information is readily available to the public.

“Do we really need the ’thou shalts’ from the SEC in an age when we have so much more information at our fingertips?” said John Jenkins, partner at Calfee, Halter & Griswold LLP and an editor of TheCorporateCounsel.net.

Federal securities rules have required quarterly reporting since 1970, when the SEC required it as part of a formalization of stock-exchange practices that preceded the agency’s creation in 1934.

The SEC’s planned meeting isn’t the start of a formal rule-making process and is intended to solicit feedback on how the quarterly reporting system is functioning and what improvements could be made, a step that could in the future lead to regulatory changes.

—Michael Rapoport contributed to this article.

Write to Gabriel T. Rubin at gabriel.rubin@wsj.com