This paper examines the extent of financial information disclosure on the Internet by the largest companies in the UK in 1998. Companies were surveyed to establish whether they had a website and if so whether financial information was available. We also investigated whether that information was in summary form or whether the full annual report was available. This study finds a statistically significant positive relationship between the size of a company and the use and extent of disclosure on the Internet. There was no significant association between industry type and disclosure.
Financial reporting on the Internet is an activity that has increased in recent years. This paper reports the results of a survey of Internet reporting by the top 99 Japanese companies in 1998. It was found that the majority of these companies (78) had a Web site in English and that of these 68 reported some financial information with 57 providing detailed accounting information. Company size was significantly positively associated with the existence of a Web site but the extent of financial disclosure did not appear to be related to size. There was no significant association between profitability, industry grouping and overseas listing status and Internet disclosure. The survey was updated in 2001 by re‐evaluating those companies which had no Web site or only a Japanese Web site in 1998. It was found that the majority of these companies now have an English language Web site with full annual reports available.
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