Worldwide, corporations are using the Internet to reach customers instantaneously. Corporates in the western world are known to use internet services more extensively even for reporting their financial performance as it provides instant accessibility, besides being interactive. Thus, there is a shift in the recent past towards a timelier, readily accessible, interactive web based financial reporting. However, no such literature is available on Indian corporates making use of Internet to report their annual performance. The present paper is an attempt in that direction. The study revealed that Indian private banks are more advanced in using Internet for financial reporting than government-owned banks.
The fast moving developments on the Internet affect all aspects of society. Corporate reporting
is not an exception to it. The Internet has been described as a new platform for disseminating
financial as well as non-financial information. It is a platform that exhibits distinctive and
attractive features that make it an effective option when compared with the traditional one. It is fast,
cheap and increasingly accessible to shareholders and other stakeholders. The vast majority of large
companies in major developed countries in US, Europe and Australia now all have web sites (Deller
et al., 1999, Lymer et al., 1999, Ettredge et al., 2001, Lodhia et al., 2003).
The key object of corporate reporting is to provide decision useful information and extend
accountability to numerous stakeholders. In present times, increased economic, market and regulatory
pressures are requiring companies to accumulate and publish information regarding social and
environmental issues, corporate governance details, marketing information as well as more general
issues relating to the company in greater frequency, detail and variety of formats. Greater disclosure
would enable regulators to better monitor and to control excessive risk taking by corporations.
Companies use various media to report their financial and non-financial performance. Traditionally,
the companies employ print media as a crucial medium for corporate reporting. General purpose
printed corporate annual reports, as well as specific paper based reports (for instance, environmental
reports); have been used to disseminate corporate information to stakeholders (Lodhia et al., 2003).
Though these paper-based reports have the global acceptability, they may not have the ability to be
timely accessible, interactive or detailed as may be required. Increasingly, the emphasis has shifted
towards a timelier, readily accessible, interactive and detailed medium for corporate reporting (Lymer
et al., 1999). |
