The determinants of corporate internet reporting in Egypt: an exploratory analysis

The purpose of this paper is to provide exploratory evidence about the use of the internet for disclosure purposes by non-financial companies listed on the Egyptian Exchange – and influences thereon – at two points in time: 2010 and 2011. Selection of these periods permits direct investigation of the extent to which the disruption caused by the popular uprising in early 2011 impacted on practice.

The sample comprises all of the 172 non-financial listed companies at the end of 2010. A disclosure index was developed to evaluate the content of the investigated websites in 2010 and 2011. Univariate and multivariate analysis is used to examine the cross-sectional determinants of disclosure both in total and in terms of three specific content categories.

The study reveals that 40.7 and 42.7 per cent of the sample companies provided some form of financial information via their websites in 2010 and 2011, respectively (i.e. pre and post the Spring 2011 political revolution). The results of the multivariate analysis indicate consistency across the two years in terms of total score determinants, but some variation in the disaggregated evidence.

This study indicates that Egyptian firms have started embracing the power of the internet as a disclosure channel, but the extent of these practices is still limited, with great variations evident amongst the sampled companies in this regard. Encouragingly, the disruption caused by the political upheaval in 2011 appears not to have caused reduction in the propensity to provide online disclosures.