This paper provides empirical evidences on the corporate social disclosure practice in the highly regulated industries namely banking and finance. In response to prior literature, research in specific industry will allow the researcher to see some specific pattern in disclosure theme for those industries because all social disclosure items were treated equally. Result from the study on disclosure theme shows that product related disclosure was highest. It may indicate some important issues taking place in the period under study. Furthermore, the result of the hypothesis testing shows that size, listing status and age of business appear to significantly influence the disclosure practice and may conforms to legitimacy theory postulate. While the profitability variable show insignificant relationship possibly due to prior literature notion that decision to disclose social information is related to public pressure variable rather than profitability variable. Finally, for the company profiles the result shows negative and insignificant relationship.

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PurposeThis study focuses on Malaysian companies because of the confidence shown by the international business community in what is considered to be the best country for corporate governance practice. Additionally, the Malaysian stock market is considered to be the largest stock market in terms of market capitalization in Asia. The primary objective of this study is to investigate the utilization of the internet by Malaysian‐listed companies for investor information or communication. It also examines the content of such investor relations (IR) information compared with similar web sites from other parts of the world.Design/methodology/approachThe sample for the study consists of 100 stock market index‐linked firms listed on the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange.FindingsUsing a disclosure index for measuring investor information disclosure published in the companies’ web sites, this study revealed that only 70 firms provided investor‐related materials on their web sites. The highest‐ranking investor‐relations item was the background of the companies.Originality/valueThe results confirm that a gap exists between developed countries and developing countries with respect to the utilization of the internet for investor‐relations purposes. This study also provides evidence that governing bodies in East Asia – such as the Securities Commission, the Stock Exchange, and the Accounting Standard Board – should encourage (and, if necessary, enforce) the publication of IR information on company web sites.

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Despite the growing interest in qualitative research and discussion of ethics, there has been little focus in the literature on the specific ethical dilemmas faced by researchers. In this paper, we share our fieldwork experiences regarding the ethical dilemmas that we encountered while doing research on a sensitive topic. Specifically, we share some of the ethical dilemmas, that is, concerning confidentiality, anonymity, legitimacy, controversial data, interpretation and off-the-record data, which emerged from the research. Most importantly, this paper shares ideas concerning how researchers might deal with ethical issues while preserving their integrity in the research process. Overall, this paper suggests approaches that qualitative researchers can adopt when doing research on sensitive topics. The paper contributes towards closing an existing gap in the literature, making visible the challenges frequently faced by qualitative researchers, that is, the vulnerability of researchers while preserving research integrity. Finally, this paper concludes with the suggestion that ethical dilemmas are part of the research process in doing qualitative research. However, it is suggested that future research should focus on ethical issues from the perspective of the researchers as well as the respondents.