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The purpose of this paper is to establish the level of internet financial reporting (IFR) of Slovenian companies, including the contents as well as the presentations of online financial information. The second objective was to explore the opinions of users towards newer methods of online financial reporting.

IFR was evaluated on the basis of the IFR index composed of 32 contents-related and 18 presentations-related elements. By means of regression analysis, the authors have established the intensity and direction of impact of six factors on the IFR index: size, profitability, the company's legal form, ownership concentration, age and sector.

During the first research phase, the authors established that 110 (52.64 per cent) of large companies disclose its financial information on its web site. Factors which impact the IFR are as follows: company size, ownership concentration, legal form and sector of operation. Larger companies, companies with a lower ownership concentration, public limited companies and financial sector companies disclose financial information to a greater extent compared to other companies.

This research will enable the comparison of the annual level of IFR in Slovenia and in other countries where such research has already been performed.

Through the disclosure of financial information online, companies will be able to improve the possibility of attracting foreign investors who often rely on the internet as the only source of information.

This study investigates the effect of corporate governance mechanisms and country-level factors on the extent of Internet Financial Reporting (IFR). We used a sample of 106 listed firms from five African countries. A financial reporting disclosure index was used to compute the aggregate IFR scores, which are made up of two components: content and presentation. Our results indicate that IFR relates to board size, firm size, country-level governance, economic development and index return. These results evidence the predominance of country-level factors over firm-specific factors in explaining the extent of IFR in Africa. It also shows that corporate governance mechanisms via board practices are insufficient to explain IFR in Africa. By further extending our analysis into the two components of IFR, we find that factors affecting the content and presentation dimensions are different. This study is among the first to investigate the extent of IFR in several African countries and adds to the existing evidence that has mainly focussed on firm-specific factors.

The present study seeks to paint the current state of voluntary disclosure of internet financial reporting (IFR) in Bangladesh as an example of an emerging economy and to investigate empirically some company characteristics as determinants of such practice.

Using a sample of 83 listed companies in Bangladesh in the year 2009 and the disclosure index of Deller et al., Marston, Xiao et al. and Marston and Polei and comments from the users and investors of Bangladesh, the study employs statistical analysis to investigate the association between a number of company characteristics and the extent of voluntary disclosure of IFR.

The findings revealed that only 29.12 percent (83) companies had web sites out of the 285 listed companies and only 33.34 percent (28) companies' provided financial information. Out of seven variables, only big audit firms and non‐family ownership variables were significantly associated with the levels of voluntary disclosure. Another important result revealed that despite the mandatory requirements of having audit committee in Bangladesh, the companies without the audit committee were disclosing voluntary information more and it raised the question on the lack of regulatory enforcement in Bangladesh.

The scope of this study is limited to a single country; it would be interesting to replicate this study to a group of emerging countries which have many similarities to the Bangladesh environment.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, no studies have been conducted on IFR in a South Asian emerging country, in particular Bangladesh. The study also is the first of its kind to examine the whole population of a period in any country which enhances contribution to IFR literature. Unlike the prior studies conducted in emerging countries, the study contributes not only to the present state of IFR by the listed companies in Bangladesh but also the connectivity problem between the dream and reality of the digital Bangladesh concept. The study also finds that the companies' IFR practices are not influenced by “Digital Bangladesh” concept.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of board of directors and audit committee effectiveness on the level of internet financial reporting (IFR) disclosure practices.

The sample consists of 152 listed financial companies in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. Based on agency theory, the authors posit that board of directors and audit committee effectiveness influence corporate IFR disclosure practice. Content analysis approach, based on an un-weighted index of 35 IFR items is used to measure the level of IFR disclosure. Thus, multiple regression analysis is utilized to analyse the results of this paper.

The results show that board of directors and audit committee effectiveness has significant influence on the level of IFR disclosure.

One potential limitation of this paper is that the sample is drawn only from the GCC listed financial companies. Therefore, the findings cannot be generalized to other than the financial institutions.

The finding(s) highlights the importance of board of directors and audit committee characteristics in corporate governance and in the development of financial markets that foster IFR disclosure.

This paper extends previous IFR disclosure studies by considering both the role of board of directors and audit committee effectiveness score in examining IFR disclosure.

This paper aims to analyse the implications of globalisation and the adoption of international standards (International Financial Reporting Standards [IFRS]) for accounting information quality.

This paper uses a sample of 329 banks across 29 countries leading up to and beyond the implementation of IFRS to test for related hypotheses.

First, banks’ financial statements are prepared on the basis of international standards as national economies are integrated when social norms are diffused. Building on these results, the second test suggests that the relatively high-quality earnings among banks in Africa during the period is attributable to the adoption of and interaction of IFRS with globalisation and the strategy of banks to diversify within and across interest and non-interest income.

The authors investigate how globalisation and the adoption of IFRS affect accounting information quality.

From an agency theory realm, this study aims to respond to the more recent calls to deeply analyze the indirect influence of professional shareholders, namely, institutional, blockholder and foreign owners, on the extent of compliance with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) mandatory reporting requirements.

Multivariate regression analysis was applied. Moreover, quantitative static and dynamic panel data have been used. More plainly, ordinary least squares was run as a baseline estimator. Afterwards, one-step system generalized method of moment and two-stage least squares were conducted to control for the potential endogeneity dilemma. The analysis is based on a sample of nonfinancial listed firms on the Palestine Stock Exchange for the time span of 10 years, from 2010 to 2019.

After controlling for the detrimental effect of the endogeneity issue, the findings clearly reveal that the effect of the three types of professional shareholders (institutional, blockholder and foreign) on the extent of compliance with IFRS is more significant under a high proportion of independent nonexecutive directors.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, prior literature on the nexus between shareholding structure and compliance level with IFRS has restricted solely to analyzing the direct influence without casting the light on the moderation effect of independent nonexecutive directors. Hence, analyzing this sensitive configuration merits attention. In this vein, to ameliorate the compliance level with IFRS, regulators have to devote remarkable effort to updating both enforcement mechanisms and best practices of shareholding structure simultaneously.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between related party transactions disclosure (RPTD) and firm valuation in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), an emerging market.

Data on study variables were obtained manually from the published financial statements of all listed companies in the stock market during the period 2008-2012. Panel regression analysis models with fixed and random effects were used to ensure reliability of results. Several robustness checks were undertaken on the study outcomes.

The empirical results show that there is a significant negative relationship between RPTD and firm valuation in the UAE. RPTDs for subsidiaries and associates have the most damaging impact on firm valuation. Other control variables such as corporate governance disclosure (CGD), debt to equity, asset tangibility and sales growth show significant impact on firm valuation.

The potential difference in the understanding of what constitutes “related party” across companies may affect the extent of related party disclosure across companies. Furthermore, some variables are not controlled for such as ownership structure and cultural values.

This paper provides useful practical guidelines for regulatory agencies, corporate managers and other stakeholders for improving the financial reporting system.

RPTD was measured according to the International Financial Reporting Standards (IAS 24) standards. Furthermore, the impact of new control variables such as CGD and product market competition was tested for financial and non-financial sectors.

This paper aims to examine the impact of the auditor's characteristics on bank's earnings management (EM) through loan loss provisions (LLP) for African banks.

This study is based on 360 bank-year observations from 14 African countries for the period 2011–2016, discretionary LLP is used as proxy for EM. Panel regressions have been conducted.

The authors' findings reveal that auditor's industry specialization and tenure exert a negative and significant influence on the extent of LLP-based EM. The results also show that total fees paid to the banks' auditors are positively related to the extent of EM. In a further analysis, the authors find that industry specialist auditors are more effective in reducing the incoming-increasing. Similarly, the positive relationship previously found between EM and total fees still holds only for income-increasing. Moreover, auditor tenure negatively impacts both income-increasing and income-decreasing EM. As for auditor change, results reveal differential effect on EM.

The current research extends prior literature and provides an understanding of an important external monitoring mechanism, the external audit, within African banks. To the best of the authors' knowledge, there is a paucity of cross-country studies that has addressed the influence of auditors' attributes on banks' EM in Africa.