Assessment of quality of internet financial disclosures using a scoring system. A case of Polish stock issuers
Vol. 13, Nr. 1/2014 , p50..81
Author(s):
Joanna Dyczkowska
Keywords:
investor relations, internet financial reporting, financial disclosures
Abstract:
Due to investor relations sections placed oncorporate websites shareholders have an access to current information on stockissuers’ activities. This enables investors to participate in discussions ondecisions met by a board of a company. Transparent and comprehensibleinformation should become, therefore, a key element of stock issuers’information policies. The paper aims at evaluating quality of Internetfinancial disclosures, comprising: completeness, accuracy, relevance andtransparency. With a scoring method applied and with a use of appropriateweights in reference to particular criteria, a ranking of stock issuers,according to a level of disclosures, was established. The examined groupconsisted of 143 publicly traded Polish companies which were listed on theWarsaw Stock Exchange. Although all of them run corporate websites, almost onethird did not provide any information coming directly from financialstatements, whereas almost half did not disclose any financial ratios usingInternet investor relations sections. The research findings indicated that fewcompanies only could be labeled as those representing a high level of financialdisclosures. Most of the examined objects were characterized by a low level ofdisclosures. That situation proves that despite the existence of recommendedpractices in a discussed area, only a small number of companies perceivedcorporate websites as an important communication channel with their investors.Almost one third of the research sample did not consider that way ofpresentation as necessary to build confidence among shareowners. The second objective of the paper was to investigatewhether there existed relations between a company size, profitability or anindustrial affiliation and the quality of Internet financial disclosures.Respecting results of the correlation analysis the author claims that a companysize is weakly but positively correlated with the quality of financialreporting disclosures and with the total quality of Internet financial disclosures.Profitability of the examined companies was found, in turn, to be weakly butnegatively correlated with the quality of financial reporting disclosures.Research findings indicated also that there were statistically validdifferences in sizes of companies respecting the quality of Internet financialdisclosures. Disclosures of financial reporting information, financial ratiosand total Internet financial disclosures did not differ for various industries,though.
Download:
http://online-cig.ase.ro/jcig/art/13_1_3.pdf
Back
|
|