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The purpose of this paper is to identify the web-based features of corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure that play a role in making CSR information prominent to investors and give the information better recognition for investment decisions.

The authors posit a positive association between the company’s capital market performance and the web-based features used for CSR disclosure by the company. The authors argue that the more effective the feature is in enhancing the prominence of CSR information, the higher is the share turnover and market value of shares of a company, and the lower is its share prices’ bid-ask spread. Five specific web-based features, namely, the location, accessibility, medium, variety and extent of disclosure are identified as features used for web-based CSR disclosure. The research framework is drawn from Brennan and Merkl–Davies’ (2013) impression management strategies and Merton’s (1987) “investor recognition hypothesis”.

The findings show that visual and structural emphases of CSR information via specific web-based features enhance information prominence and could favourably influence investors’ impression towards the company. Investors are likely to make investment decisions in favour of the company, resulting in a higher share turnover along with increased market value of the shares of the company and lower bid-ask spread of its share prices.

The paper highlights the significance of utilisation of web-based features in enhancing CSR information prominence for impression management purposes.

The findings have the potential to benefit preparers, users and policymakers by enhancing their knowledge and understanding of the utilisation of web-based CSR disclosure features. Specifically, preparers will be more aware of web-based feature(s) that could be useful in projecting CSR-related information to their stakeholders.

The study will help enhance the dissemination of web-based CSR information.

The study adds to the literature on web-based CSR disclosure, by developing a structured approach to examine the effectiveness of web-based features for investors’ impression management.

This paper aims to examine the factors influencing the extent of information disclosed on the companies’ websites in the Middle East region.

This study uses multiple regression models to examine the impact of some companies’ characteristics (company size, leverage, profitability, size of the audit firm, ownership concentration) on the extent of online disclosure. The study was conducted on 170 listed companies in seven countries (Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the UAE, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar and Turkey). The website content was analyzed during the period from September 2015 to December 2015.

The results reveal that the most important factors influencing the level of Web-based disclosure are company size, leverage and the size of the audit firm.

The results of the study will help regulators to formulate policies about Web-based disclosure as they offer insights into the characteristics of those companies which do and do not meet investors’ demands for online information. Thereby, the regulators might expect that the Middle East companies engage in the online reporting to be larger, have higher debt levels and audited by a big-four audit firm.

This study, added to the existing literature by analyzing seven countries in the Middle East region, allows having a clearer idea on the online disclosure in this region as a whole, which has not been examined before. In this paper, to assess the information’s disclosure on the website, the study has been interested in all of the information presented on the websites: financial and non-financial information.

The purpose of this paper is to consider the determinants of web‐based corporate reporting by French‐listed firms.

The paper is based on a literature review of the determinants of web‐based corporate disclosures and is both descriptive and explicative. It analyzes the use of the internet to disseminate corporate information and examines the extent of web‐based corporate disclosure by developing a set of disclosure indexes. To test the authors' hypotheses, an OLS regression framework was estimated on a sample of 529 French‐listed firms in 2005.

Descriptive analysis shows that French firms are using the internet to disseminate existing rather than timely information. The results show that large‐sized firms, large‐audited firms, firms featuring a dispersed ownership structure, those that have issued bonds or equities and IT industry firms extensively used the web to disclose information to their shareholders. The results also show that voluntary disclosures are more suited for the internet than mandatory disclosures.

The study does not cover all information provided on web sites, particularly those about the impact of IFRS on companies' accounts.

The findings are useful to both managers, wishing to meet actual and potential investors' informational needs and to investors wishing to invest in a richer informational environment and to better assess firm value.

This paper provides a better understanding of the choice of the internet to release information in the French context, where internet corporate reporting is not standardized as in the USA and Canada.

The purpose of this paper is to examine empirically the impact of web‐based intellectual capital (IC) reporting on firm's value and its cost of finance.

A content‐analysis of corporate web sites is conducted from four continental European countries (Belgium, France, Germany and The Netherlands) on the presence of IC information. Simultaneous regression modelling is used to control for endogeneity within a firm's disclosure strategy.

The data show that cross‐sectional differences in the extent of IC disclosure are positively associated with firm value. Greater IC disclosure in continental Europe is associated with lower information asymmetry, lower implied cost of equity capital and lower rate of interest paid.

The study is restricted to an analysis of firm's benefits of increased web‐based disclosure without considering related costs.

The results of the study show that firms tend to benefit economically from better IC disclosure.

Existing evidence is extended by considering the capital market implications of IC related disclosure and web‐based related disclosure.

This study aims to examine the association between firm size, profitability, leverage, auditor type and internet reporting and investigate the moderating effect of legal system, investor protection, masculinity, economic development, construction of disclosure index and measurement proxies of independent variables.

This study conducts a meta-analytic review for 59 research papers to synthesise quantitatively the results of previous literature on the determinants of internet reporting. This study uses Hunter and Schmidt’s (2004) procedures to conduct the analysis. There are three main procedures to be followed: calculating the weighted effect size, calculating observed correlation variance and sampling error variance and, finally, testing for homogeneity and moderating effects.

The results indicate a significant positive association between firm size, profitability, leverage, auditor type and internet reporting. The results confirm the prediction of agency theory, signalling theory, political cost hypothesis and diffusion of innovation theory. Moreover, the results show that investor protection, masculinity, economic development, construction of disclosure index and measurement proxies for independent variables moderate the association between profitability, leverage and internet reporting.

This study suffers from some limitations. First, corporate governance variables such as board size, role duality and board independence were not included in the analysis due to the limited number of studies that discuss the association between corporate governance and internet reporting. Second, the study does not control for the endogeneity problem.

Future research has to consider the moderating effect of investor protection, masculinity, economic development, construction of disclosure index and measurement proxies for independent variables on the association between corporate characteristics and internet reporting. Future research can extend this work by examining the association between corporate governance, ownership structure and internet reporting. The findings regarding the determinants of internet reporting should be on concern of regulatory authorities.

This study contributes to and extends previous meta-analysis literature by examining internet reporting determinants, as previous financial reporting meta-analysis studies give no attention to internet reporting.

The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of web - based disclosure on the cost of debt for the MENA region setting.

The sample of this paper consists of 237 MENA listed non-financial companies for the year 2017. Multiple regression models were used to examine the impact of online disclosure on the cost of debt. Content analysis is used to measure the extent of web-based disclosure.

The results reveal that there is a negative and significant association between the web-based disclosure and the company’s cost of debt. These results support the hypothesis of the economic utility of the information disclosed on the website for creditors in this region.

The results of the study have important implications for managers in the MENA region. It is necessary for managers to improve the company’s transparency through web-based disclosure. The companies must benefit from the different technologies offered by the Internet in order to offer to the creditors unlimited access to up to date information. In fact, web-based disclosure may mitigate the information asymmetry, the uncertainty of creditors and, consequently, reduces the cost of debt. 10; 10;Moreover, the results of the study provide empirical evidence for the advantages of voluntary web-based disclosure. The results highlight the importance to companies and regulators of understanding the benefits of using the website as a means of information disclosure. The regulators in MENA countries can rely on these results to establish suitable policies to improve the quality of web-based disclosure. The regulators need also to put in rules in relation to the online disclosure. In fact, an understanding of web-based disclosure is important for regulators and companies. Given the positive effect of online disclosure (the reduction of the cost of debt), knowledge about the economic consequences of web-based disclosure would enable companies in the MENA region to optimize their online disclosure policies.

This study, added to the existing literature by examining the consequences of online disclosure practices in MENA countries. Most previous studies conducted in this region were limited to analyzing the determinants of the company’s web-based disclosure. This paper would extend the literature on the online disclosure practices by investigating the association between these practices and the cost of debt in a developing economics: the MENA region. Previous studies were limited to testing this association only in developed countries.

This paper aims to examine the effect of Web-based financial reporting and social media platforms on the proxies of information asymmetry in the Saudi Stock Exchange.

The sample of this paper consists of 133 Saudi listed non-financial companies for the year 2019. Web-based disclosure level was measured using 25 items, and the social media platforms examined in this study are Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. The information asymmetry proxies are measured using the relative spread and the time-weighted average bid-ask spread.

The empirical results have shown that there is a negative and significant relation between Web-based financial reporting and the adoption of social media platforms and the proxies of information asymmetry. Indeed, the relative spread and the time-weighted average bid-ask spread decreased with increased Web-based reporting levels. Among three platforms (Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn), the results show that only the use of Twitter as a channel for information disclosure has a negative and significant effect on information asymmetry proxies. Consequently, in the Saudi context, the authors demonstrate that the assumptions of the agency, stewardship and signaling theories are supported. Also, results reveal that the effect of information disclosure through websites and social media on reducing information asymmetry is stronger for large companies than small companies.

The paper provides new insights into the role played by websites and social media platforms in the reduction of the information asymmetry in the stock market. Consequently, investors and regulatory authorities in the Saudi financial market must give great importance to online information disclosure and its implications for lowering information asymmetry. This empirical study informs regulators in Saudi Arabia to conduct the better practice of Web-based and social media financial reporting and to regulate the current practice of information disclosure. Besides, the obtained results have the potential to convince firms’ managers to improve online information disclosure to benefit from the reduction in information asymmetry.

Unlike previous studies, this study investigates, simultaneously, the effect of Web-based and social media information disclosure on the proxies of information asymmetry in a developing economy. In addition, the hypotheses of this study are developed based on a set of theories (the agency, signaling and stewardship theories), to verify the applicability of these three theories in the Saudi context.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of board composition on the level of corporate internet reporting (CIR) practices.

This study uses content analysis to examine the CIR practices of 140 Indian companies selected from the Bombay Stock Exchange 200 index for the year 2015. CIR was measured on a comprehensive internet disclosure index of 136 items capturing both content and presentation dimensions. Regression analysis was used to explore the impact of board composition (board size, board independence, frequency of board meetings, CEO duality and family members on the board) and audit committee characteristics on CIR while controlling the impact of variables firm size, leverage, profitability and industry type.

The findings reveal that larger boards, boards with less family members and audit committees that meet more frequently are more likely to engage in CIR practices. In addition, larger firms and firms that make less use of debt tend to disclose more information on their websites.

The focus of the study has been on one aspect of corporate governance mechanisms i.e. board characteristics. Future studies can explore the impact of ownership structure on CIR practices.

This study extends the prior CIR research by demonstrating the effectiveness of corporate governance mechanisms in particular board characteristics in adopting internet reporting practices for Indian companies. The examination of the relationship between corporate reporting on the internet and corporate governance aids regulators in evaluating and enhancing the effectiveness of the boards.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a model to assess web-based corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure prominence and use this model to explore the prominence of CSR disclosures of listed New Zealand (NZ) companies.

A CSR Disclosure Prominence Indicator Model was constructed using five key elements that include the dissemination medium, accessibility, location, content variety and extent of CSR disclosures. The websites of 65 of the largest listed NZ companies from 11 industry groupings were explored through this model.

A significant proportion (81.5 per cent) of listed NZ companies in the sample were utilising their websites for communicating CSR information to stakeholders. The CSR Disclosure Prominence Indicator Model revealed that companies that have CSR-related disclosures on their websites used multiple dissemination media and locations to enhance prominence of such disclosures. CSR commentary on the webpage was the most prominent dissemination medium due to its ease of accessibility, with a separate CSR webpage being the most prominent location. Environmental performance and society-related issues received the most prominent emphasis. Although companies from “sensitive” industry sectors appeared to disclose their CSR information more prominently, those from “less sensitive” industries also attempted to make their CSR disclosure more prominent and noticeable through strategic placement and through the extent of disclosure.

The paper highlights the importance of managing web-based CSR disclosure prominence, thereby highlighting its significance in communication of CSR information.

Prominently placed CSR disclosures could be a significant platform for companies to strategically manage their image and identity. The CSR Disclosure Prominence Indicator Model could be utilised by companies to effectively assess and manage the prominence of CSR disclosures on their websites for more effective communication with stakeholders.

The paper complements earlier studies on CSR disclosures by constructing and applying a model to assess the prominence of web-based CSR disclosures.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the level of web-based Online Financial Reporting Disclosure (OFRD) in Islamic banking in Oman.

A checklist was developed to measure the level of Web-based Online Financial Reporting Disclosure in Islamic banking consist of 70 items (Appendix). The sample of the study consists of Islamic banking in Oman.

The findings of the descriptive analysis indicated that the overall level of web-based online financial reporting disclosure was 69%.

The practical implication of the results are helping the authorities to put more efforts toward the quality of web-based online information to satisfy all parties.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, there is no similar research done to explore the level of web-based online financial reporting Disclosure (OFRD) in Islamic banking in Oman