Digital reporting in Eastern Europe: An empirical study

Abstract

In the recent years, the European Union (EU) has developed a series of norms with the objective of increasing the transparency of both companies and the financial markets, as well, through the diffusion of company information via the Internet. The incorporation of countries of Eastern Europe into the EU raises the need to determine the impact of their incorporation on the transparency of the markets. In effect, incorporation into the EU implies the need for companies from those countries to adopt the practices of transparency promoted by the EU. The objective of this article is to determine the distance or differences existing between the information currently supplied by the companies of Eastern Europe that have recently joined the EU or are now in the process of joining and the information required according to the initiatives of the EU. Furthermore, it attempts empirically to identify the variables that could have some influence on the amount of information disclosed. To this end, data from companies of each of the following countries have been collected: Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Turkey. Results show a statistically significant relationship between the extent of information disclosure on the Internet and a) company size, b) the company's activity being in the financial sector, and c) the fact of employing one of the world's Big Four accountancy firms for auditing the company's books.