Internet financial reporting determinants: a meta-analytic review

Purpose - This study aims to examine the association between firm size, profitability, leverage, auditor type and internet reporting and investigate the moderating effect of legal system, investor protection, masculinity, economic development, construction of disclosure index and measurement proxies of independent variables. Design/methodology/approach - This study conducts a meta-analytic review for 59 research papers to synthesise quantitatively the results of previous literature on the determinants of internet reporting. This study uses Hunter and Schmidt’s (2004) procedures to conduct the analysis. There are three main procedures to be followed: calculating the weighted effect size, calculating observed correlation variance and sampling error variance and, finally, testing for homogeneity and moderating effects. Findings - The results indicate a significant positive association between firm size, profitability, leverage, auditor type and internet reporting. The results confirm the prediction of agency theory, signalling theory, political cost hypothesis and diffusion of innovation theory. Moreover, the results show that investor protection, masculinity, economic development, construction of disclosure index and measurement proxies for independent variables moderate the association between profitability, leverage and internet reporting. Research limitations/implications - This study suffers from some limitations. First, corporate governance variables such as board size, role duality and board independence were not included in the analysis due to the limited number of studies that discuss the association between corporate governance and internet reporting. Second, the study does not control for the endogeneity problem. Practical implications - Future research has to consider the moderating effect of investor protection, masculinity, economic development, construction of disclosure index and measurement proxies for independent variables on the association between corporate characteristics and internet reporting. Future research can extend this work by examining the association between corporate governance, ownership structure and internet reporting. The findings regarding the determinants of internet reporting should be on concern of regulatory authorities. Originality/value - This study contributes to and extends previous meta-analysis literature by examining internet reporting determinants, as previous financial reporting meta-analysis studies give no attention to internet reporting.