Corporate E-Governance Disclosure in the Digital Age: An Empirical Study of Spanish Listed Companies

Abstract

Corporate governance research has focused mainly on the analysis of the information that firms ought to disclose and the effects of disclosure, basically without considering the media involved. This paper examines the relevance of technology, and particularly the internet, for the improvement of corporate governance and transparency in listed companies. The need for this study is clear in view of the increasing interest shown by supervisory authorities for the oversight of the European and US capital markets in regulating not only content but also the manner in which corporate governance information is disclosed over the internet. In this paper we have quantified three corporate governance transparency indexes and empirically identified the variables that explain the levels of disclosure attained. Our results reveal that the firms scoring highest in terms of transparency are also those that are most likely to use the internet as a channel for the disclosure of corporate governance information. Key factors underlying the levels of transparency observed include the degree to which firms are followed by analyst, the time they have been listed, their visibility and the fact of belonging to the communications and information services sector.

Keywords: Transparency, Internet, Disclosure, Corporate, Governance

JEL Classification: G18, G34, O33, M40