Corporate Reporting on the Internet in a European Emerging Capital Market: The Greek Case

Abstract

This paper investigates the internet corporate reporting practises of Greek listed companies. The aim is twofold: to contribute to the growing literature by examining internet corporate reporting in a small open European capital market; and to present a model of online dissemination of information by companies of all size in Greece. An Internet Disclosure Index (IDI) of 50 items is constructed, which incorporates content and presentation criteria. A total of 141 corporate websites were screened, and both partial and aggregates scores were produced. The scores show that the Greek companies have a lot of work to do in order to enhance the investor relations activities on the internet. On average, the larger, more established companies have significantly higher levels of disclosure for both financial and non-financial data. The contribution of this study is to describe how corporate reporting practices have evolved in an emerging European country, where investor confidence was considerably damaged by speculative events of 1999 and 2000. This study also provides some useful insights into corporate reporting via the internet in smaller listed companies, which have not been researched extensively.