The determinants of internet financial reporting in Jordan: financial versus corporate governance

Abstract

The internet has become widely used as a channel to disseminate financial information by Jordanian listed companies in response to the cross-listing agreement among the Amman Stock Exchange (ASE), Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange (ADX) and Dubai Financial Market (DFM). This study aimed to investigate the determinants of internet financial reporting (IFR). The results should help policy makers and regulators in building a framework for mandating IFR. An IFR index was developed to measure the level of each firm's information content and format disclosures. IFR determinants were divided into financial characteristics and corporate governance mechanisms. The analysis determined that firms that are larger, profitable, and more leveraged, with a separation between chairperson and CEO positions, with larger board size numbers, and with fewer independent non-executive directors are more likely to engage in IFR. By extending the analysis using OLS and 2SLS regression, the findings suggest that IFR was predicted using size, liquidity, leverage, market-to-book ratio, chairperson/CEO separation, independent non-executive directors, board size, and shareholder number. Corporate governance mechanisms can predict IFR and its components, content and format more accurately than firms' financial characteristics.