Measuring and explaining the quality of Internet investor relations activities: a multinational empirical analysis

This study extends prior research on the use of the Internet for investor relations (IR) activities by investigating the quality determinants of IR websites. Detailed data on IR website characteristics were collected for 270 companies located in six countries (Australia, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, South Africa and the UK). The results of the descriptive part of this study show that the IR section of its website is an established element in a company's Internet presence as, on average, over half of the 29 IR characteristics were found on the corporate websites. Based on the univariate and multivariate analysis, the variables proxying for company size, level of internationalization (foreign listing and foreign revenue), proportion of shares available to individual investors and disclosure environment are significantly related to the extent of IR activities on the Internet. Also, evidence is found of a significant effect for the level of technology (industry) and the growth rate (ratio of market value to book value) of a company, an effect which for both variables is negative. The results of the study indicate that studies on the use of the Internet for IR activities may benefit from the use of a detailed measure of website quality.