The impact of firm characteristics on the extent of financial disclosure in company websites of the top 200 Philippine corporations

• Main Author: Sabado, Joan P.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2005
• Subjects: Financial disclosure; Corporations > Philippines; World Wide Web; Accounting
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_masteral/3304; https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=10142&context=etd_masteral
• Institution: De La Salle University

The rapid evolution of the Internet technology has affected the way accounting information is practiced and communicated. Since Internet technology is rapidly growing in the Philippines, accounting in the country is no exception to these changes. One of these notable changes is corporate financial reporting. Using signaling theory relevant to voluntary financial disclosure on the Internet to lay the foundation for this study, this paper empirically examined the extent of financial disclosure in the Internet and determined the firm characteristics of the Top 200 (in terms of gross revenues) Philippine Corporations registered in the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for the year 2003. This study identified the extent of financial disclosure in the Internet of those Internet financial reporting (IFR) companies. A checklist patterned after SECs general disclosure checklists were used to assess extent of disclosure to determine the quantity and types of financial information posted or disclosed on company websites. The disclosure checklist included eight (8) parts ranging from components of financial reports, statement of managements responsibility, report of an independent auditor, representations as to audit, opinion to be expressed, notes to financial statements and other disclosures relating to postings of xii financial information on company websites. Company size, profitability performance, risk and other monitoring factors determined the characteristics of these companies. Results on the 200 companies revealed that financial reporting in the Internet is not yet established in the Philippines. Practiced of IFR is only an alternative among Philippine companies. Due to the voluntary nature of IFR, financial disclosures vary among company websites. On the extent of financial disclosure, majority of IFR companies moderately disclosed their financial information. The balance sheet and the income statement were the two (2) most common financial information posted. In terms of firm characteristics, IFR is associated with large market capitalization, higher profitability, less financially in risk, greater number of employees, listed at the PSE and audited by the Philippines Big Five. On the other hand, results on multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that company size, public listing status and external auditor choice were the statistically significant variables that have the probability to likely predict the practiced of IFR among Philippine companies. Consequently, the results of this study provided insights on the current state of IFR in the Philippines the extent of financial disclosure and the firm characteristics of IFR and NIFR companies. In addition, it has confirmed the signaling theory on firm characteristics associated with companies that practiced IFR. Moreover, the results stressed the importance of IFR in the business community and the accounting profession. Due to a number of limitations in this study, it suggested topics for future research (e.g., timeliness, quality of financial disclosures and a cost-benefit analysis of IFR).