A Delphi Investigation to Explain the Voluntary Adoption of XBRL

Abstract

Abstract. The objective of this paper is to identify the factors that could have led North-American companies to voluntarily submit their information in XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language) under the XBRL Voluntary Financial Reporting Program (2005-2008. The motivation that led us to carry out this analysis was the fact that, despite the many benefits attributed to XBRL, only 137 companies (out of over 10.000 filers) decided to join the voluntary program issued by the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission). At this point, we wondered if the SEC should have promoted other benefits to encourage companies to use XBRL. To reach our goal, we conducted a Delphi study. Through this study, we asked a panel of XBRL experts their opinion about the reasons that could have led companies to voluntarily disclose their business information in XBRL. Our results show that, according to experts, factors such as to gain a deeper knowledege of XBRL and to acquire a company image as a pioneer in technology played an essential role in the process of voluntary adoption of the standard.

The Impact of XBRL: A Delphi Investigation

“…The ability to efficiently gather and disseminate data will ease compliance with the SEC disclosure requirements for 10-K and 10-Q filings (Stantial 2007), with the disclosure requirements of Regulation FD 1 (Fair Disclosure), and with other regulatory bodies such as OSHA and the FCC (Alles et al 2002). The ability to publish information once and reuse it many times (DiPiazza and Eccles 2002) will make the process of regulatory compliance more efficient and less costly (Bonson et al 2009;Pinsker and Shaomin 2008).…”

“…Though earlier articles (Baldwin et al 2006, Debreceny andGray 2001) have noted the rich research opportunities XBRL provides --in such areas as taxonomies, databases, assurance, intelligent agents, interfaces, standards development and others --researchers have only recently begun to address any aspect of XBRL use and adoption (Bonson et al 2009, Pinsker and Shaomin 2008, and Troshani and Rao 2007, Doolin and Troshani 2007). …”

“…Combined with the gain in efficiency in the audit processes, XBRL stands to improve the efficiency of the entire financial reporting process, which will lead to decreased audit costs (Bonson et al 2009;Rezaee et al 2002) and reductions in the cost of creation (Rezaee and Turner 2002) and dissemination of the financial reports (Ashbaugh et al 1999). The improvements in efficiency will also release personnel and computer resources from the financial reporting process that can be used in other areas of the firm (Bonson et al 2009;Pinsker and Shaomin, 2008).…”

“…The improvements in efficiency will also release personnel and computer resources from the financial reporting process that can be used in other areas of the firm (Bonson et al 2009;Pinsker and Shaomin, 2008).…”

“…Unfortunately, these predictions have been supported by little research investigating the probability of future XBRL impacts. Bonson et al (2009), Pinsker (2008, and Troshani and Rao (2007) have studied XBRL adoption generally, and Doolin and Troshani (2007) have studied the lack of widespread XBRL adoption in Australia. While researchers have begun to investigate some specific XBRL impacts (Hodge et al 2004, Pinsker 2003, Bovee et al 2002, Bonson 2001, much more information is needed about potential and actual impacts.…”