Understanding individual investor's behavior with financial information disclosed on the web sites

Abstract

Today's financial firms are required to disclose a great deal of data—including investment support information—on their corporate web sites. Since web sites have become an integral part of financial information disclosures, and because the multimedia characteristics embedded in those web sites have been shown to affect investors' responses, our research examines the various factors influencing investors' intention to use financial web sites to search for information. The basic premise of this study is that the reactions of individual investors in such situations translate naturally to an intention to use financial web sites and, ultimately, to actual use of these sites. By using a technology acceptance model, we conducted a rigorous questionnaire survey, over an illustrative web site on which financial information is disclosed on a regular basis as a means of providing individual investors with decision support. Our principal findings showed that: (1) consistency and technical convenience influence perceived ease of use; (2) decision quality, investment information and information quality affect perceived usefulness; and (3) perceived usefulness to the individual investor is affected most by decision quality, while perceived ease of use is influenced equally by consistency and technical convenience.