The Internet Financial Reporting by Listed Saudi Companies on Tadawul Website: (Between 2004 and 2005)

Abstract

This study uses a self-constructed Internet Financial Reporting (IFR) index to examine the extent to which companies in Saudi Arabia, a developing country with an emerging financial market, use the Internet for financial disclosure. The paper also considers factors affecting such disclosure. According to data collected from the Tadawul Website for all listed companies in years 2004 and 2005, all 74 Saudi Listed Companies (SLCs) had active and accessible websites during that period. In addition to descriptive analyses, hypotheses were tested to identify the determinants of Internet-based financial disclosure. It was found that, the Saudi Capital Market Authority (CMA) emerges as the most significant factor affecting IFR in Saudi Arabia as minimum IFR requirements are applied. Aside from the employment of the BIG-4 international auditors that they implement IFR, the empirical results show that banking industry and the location of main cities play an important role in the implementation of IFR. Moreover, in both years government and foreign ownerships were shown to be insignificant for IFR adoption. These current findings indicate that exploitation of the full potential of Internet financial disclosure by Saudi companies has yet to be made.