A Survey on Voluntary Disclosure on the Internet. Empirical Evidence from 300 European Union Companies

Abstract

Nowadays, the Internet is a powerful means for companies to voluntarily disclose all kind of financial information. A wide academic literature exists on the field. Findings reveal that the financial information disclosed is wider than that normally required by accounting regulations. Furthermore, the disclosure on the Internet of compulsory information can be considered as a voluntary reporting practice in itself. In this paper, the information currently provided on the Internet by leading companies in different European countries is analyzed in order to make a comparative analysis. To achieve this goal, data from the biggest (market value) 20 companies in each European Union country have been collected. Then, statistical tests have been performed to determine the relationships between what we have called companies transparency (dependent variable) and their sector, country of origin and size (independent variables). The results suggest that there is a statistically significant relationship between these three variables and the extent of voluntary disclosure (transparency) on the Internet.