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Voluntary Internet Financial Reporting in Croatia - Analysis of Trends and Influential Factors

The conducted research for the most actively traded Croatian companies listed at Zagreb Stock Exchange indicates that the level of voluntary Internet reporting has strongly improved during the period 2005-2010. Measured by the IFR Score the level of Internet disclosure in 2005 was 6.8, while IFR Score reached 20.1 in 2010. The increase of the IFR Score by 13.3 points is also tested by Friedman test and the established hypothesis on the expected increase of Internet reporting can be accepted. It seems that increased mandatory financial reporting requirements and endorsement of corporate governance code have stimulated usage of Internet for voluntary financial reporting. However, the average value of IFR Score of 20.1 as measured in 2010 represents 67% of maximal score value and here we must conclude that there is still significant area for further improvements. In the second part of the study we applied the regression analysis discovered that IFR Score is positively related with the company size and official listing. While the size variable was found significant in similar studies from other countries the official listing seems to be specific for Croatian business setting. Namely, since many of currently listed companies at ZSE due to regulation were forced to list in 2002, their incentive for transparency was lower than it was case for voluntary listed companies from the official market. Companies that were forced to list probably do not perceive benefits from the voluntary reporting since they do not primarily finance their operations and investments through capital markets. Rather than that, they use bank credits where information asymmetry is reduced by direct communication among companies and banks. Contrary to that, voluntary listed companies from the ZSE official market went in public to collect funding through the capital markets mechanism and increased transparency can be seen in the light of their effort to reduce information asymmetry and cost of capital.

Internet financial reporting; trends; influential factors

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