A Preliminary Investigation on the Use of the Internet for Business Reporting: A Case of Companies Listed on Amman Stock Exchange (ASE)

The purpose of this study is to examine the extent to which companies listed in ASE use the Internet to disclosebusiness and financial information. This issue should be of considerable interest to policy makers as well asforeign and local investors. With globalization and the tendency of many emerging economies, including Jordan,to relax restrictions on foreign investment, the need for electronic disclosure of business information becomesmore warranted to ease accessibility of financial data and to provide investors, especially foreign investors, withtimely and less costly information. The study findings indicate that only 82 of the 183 companies (44.8%) haveWebsites. Compared to other sectors, the banking sector is a leader in using electronic disclosure where 16 out ofthe 17 banks covered by the study have Web sites. Further examination of the Web sites indicates that banks’web-sites tend to be investors as well as customers oriented and disclose more financial information on the Webthan other companies. Most other companies’ web-sites in the remaining sectors are customer-oriented and ingeneral did not disclose annual report data. Company size and foreign investors’ share in company capital arepositively associated with the availability of Website. However, the study failed to provide evidence supportingthe association between these two variables and the extent of financial information disclosed on the Web