Abstract
This study aims to explain the relationship between firm specific characteristics and the corporate Web based disclosure level in European Union countries. European companies should apply the transparency directive requirements, which clarifies principal component of corporate Websites content. We analyze the Websites content of 197 listed groups on capital market of six European countries: Germany, Spain, French, Italy, Netherlands and UK.Web disclosure level, endogenous variable, is measured by disclosure index. It includes four dimensions: content, timeliness, technology and user supports.Our findings show that profitability, concentration ownership, information technology (IT) sector and Big 4 affect significantly Web disclosure index. We conclude that IT sector determining factor of Web financial disclosure in Europe.
Highlights
Since 1990’s years, listing companies on the world utilize the World Wide Web, as a new tool for the information dissemination
This study aims to explain the relationship between firm specific characteristics and the corporate Web based disclosure level in European Union countries
According to the Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) rank transformation regression, we find that firm size, profitability and concentration ownership are significantly related to technology index
Summary
Since 1990’s years, listing companies on the world utilize the World Wide Web, as a new tool for the information dissemination. They communicate financial and non-financial information through their corporate Websites to shareholders and they practice the “Internet financial reporting (IFR)”. IFR refers to the announcement of financial reports and statements on the listed companies Web sites. Basing to the XBRL protocol, information dissemination in a digital format pervade around the Word. Internet “is a unique information disclosure tool that encourages flexible forms of presentation and allows immediate, broad, and inexpensive communication to investors”, (Kelton & Yang, (2008), p 63). There describe and explicit the financial disclosure through Websites of listed firms in different countries, (Marston & Polei, (2004)). There found that firm characteristics are the IFR determining factors
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