Financial reporting websites : what users want in terms of form and content

Web-based financial reporting varies widely. Our research had three objectives: (1) identify design attributes for Web-based financial reporting; (2) rank those attributes; and (3) pilot test the Web as a survey tool. Sixty-one attributes were developed from prior studies. The subjects were the subscribers of the “Double Entries” email newsletter. In terms of completeness, the respondents suggested seven additional attributes. Regarding the second objective, some surprises were found. For example, the Jenkins Report emphasizes forward-looking information; yet, the respondents rated traditional content higher than forward-looking information. Traditional static attributes were rated higher than dynamic attributes. In terms of presentation, the respondents were moderately adverse to downloading files, gave relatively low ratings to “bells and whistles,” preferred hyperlinks and other navigation aids such tables of content over search and query functions. Regarding the third objective, the response rate was 13.2%, which was at the low end of response rates reported by similar projects.Los reportes financieros basados en la web varían ampliamente. Nuestra investigación tenía tres objetivos: (1), identificar los atributos de diseño para la elaboración de reportes financieros basados en la web; (2), separarlos por categorías, y (3), hacer pruebas piloto de esta web como una herramienta de estudio. Sesenta y un atributos se desarrollaron de estudios previos. Los sujetos fueron los suscriptores del boletín de correo electrónico “Entradas dobles”. En términos de integridad, los encuestados sugirieron siete atributos adicionales. Con respecto al segundo objetivo, se encontraron algunas sorpresas. Por ejemplo, el Informe Jenkins hace hincapié en la información prospectiva, aunque los encuestados valoraron más el contenido original que esta información. Los atributos tradicionales estáticos fueron major valorados que los atributos dinámicos. En términos de presentación, los encuestados se mostraron moderadamente negativos a la descarga de archivos, valoraron escasamente las “campanas y silbatos”, prefirieron los hiperenlaces y otras ayudas de navegación como tablas de contenido sobre las funciones de búsqueda y consulta. En lo referente al tercer objetivo, el ratio de respuesta fue 13.2%, el cual se halla al extremo bajo de las tasas de respuesta notificadas por proyectos similares

JOURNAL OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS VOL. 29, NO. 1, Spring 2015

EDITORIAL 1. Challenges From and To the Senior Editors of the Journal of Information Systems / Roger S. Debreceny and Mary B. Curtis ACADEMIC ARTICLES 2. Firm-Specific Characteristics of the Participants in the SEC\u27s XBRL Voluntary Filing Program / J. Efrim Boritz and Lev M. Timoshenko 3. Using XBRL to Conduct a Large-Scale Study of Discrepancies between the Accounting Numbers in Compustat and SEC 10-K Filings / Roman Chychyla and Alexander Kogan 4. The Perceived Impact of Journal of Information Systems on Promotion and Tenure / Diane J. Janvrin, Jee-Hae Lim and Gary F. Peters 5. The Reliance of External Auditors on Internal Audit\u27s Use of Continuous Audit / Irina Malaescu and Steve G. Sutton 6. An Integrative Review and Synthesis of XBRL Research in Academic Journals / Arif Perdana, Alastair Robb and Fiona Rohde 7. Eight Issues on Audit Data Analytics We Would Like Researched / Tawei Wang and Robert Cuthbertson KNOWLEDGE RESOURCES AND BOOK REVIEWS 8. Knowledge Resources and Book Reviews / Rina Limo

Financial reporting on the Internet and the external audit

Electronic dissemination of financial reports on the World Wide Web is becoming ubiquitous for larger corporations in developed market economies. This form of reporting presents many challenges for the financial statement audit. It is critical that the audit profession proactively addresses those challenges or they will be certainly addressed by government regulatory bodies and the courts of law. Most large listed public companies in France, Germany and the UK provide electronic versions of their printed annual reports on the web. A survey was made of fortyfive large listed UK, French and German corporations. A total of thirty-six of these corporations published their annual financial statements in HTML or Adobe Corporation's Acrobat. Ten of the seventeen corporations reporting in HTML included the auditors' report on their website. None of these reports linked back to the auditors' own site. A number of issues arise when corporations provide their financial statement audits on the web. These issues include the ease with which the auditor's report can be changed without any indication that a change was made; the meaning of the look and feel of the auditor's report in a rapidly changing web environment; and the implications of hyperlinks to and from web-based auditors' reports as well as the location and placement of the auditors' reports.

AN EMPIRICAL EXAMINATION OF CORPORATE WEBSITES AS A VOLUNTARY DISCLOSURE MEDIUM

Standards-setters, regulators and academics believe that corporate websites may enhance the flow of voluntary disclosure to the capital market and other stakeholders. Management’s use of corporate websites for investor relations purposes is a common practice, yet we know little about how these websites affect investors. In this study, we analyze seven corporate websites disclosures categories to examine their predictive ability and their value relevance. The results show that the key non-financial statistics, projected information, information on intangible assets, social and environmental information, are associated with future revenue, future earnings and contemporaneous stock return. The paper contributes to the growing literature on websites disclosure and more generally to the literature on voluntary and strategic disclosure