Internet corporate disclosure

In recent years, the European Union (EU) has developed a series of norms with the objective of increasing the transparency of both companies and the financial markets, as well, through the diffusion of company information via the Internet. The incorporation of countries of Eastern Europe into the EU raises the need to determine the impact of their incorporation on the transparency of the markets. In effect, incorporation into the EU implies the need for companies from those countries to adopt the practices of transparency promoted by the EU.
The objective of this article is to determine the distance or differences existing between the information currently supplied by the companies of Eastern Europe that have recently joined the EU or are now in the process of joining and the information required according to the initiatives of the EU. Furthermore, it attempts empirically to identify the variables that could have some influence on the amount of information disclosed.
To this end, data from companies of each of the following countries have been collected: Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Turkey. Results show a statistically significant relationship between the extent of information disclosure on the Internet and a) company size, b) the company's activity being in the financial sector, and c) the fact of employing one of the world's Big Four accountancy firms for auditing the company's books.

This paper investigates the determinants of internet environmental disclosure (IED) amongst Malaysian listed companies. Ten variables have been tested using data collected from 170 Malaysian listed company websites, namely, dominant personalities in the audit committee, chairman of audit and nomination committees, dominant personalities in the audit and nomination committees, internationality, leverage, foreign shareholders, level of technology, firm age, number of shareholders, and listing status. It was found that internationality, foreign shareholders, level of technology, firm age, number of shareholders, and listing status are significantly affected by the level of IED. However, dominant personalities in the audit committee, chairman of audit and nomination committees, dominant personalities in the audit and nomination committees, and leverage did not show a significant relationship with the level of IED in Malaysia. The study provided some evidence to support signaling theory, shareholder accountability theory, and cost and benefit hypothesis in relation to internet disclosure.