Financial report on the Internet in Portugal

Abstract

In the last decade, the advances in communication and information technologies dramatically changed the information flow and our notions of time and space. The Internet has been changing the information policy of companies world-wide. Basically in all developed countries, companies are increasingly using the Internet to provide their financial information. This research presents an empirical study aiming to analyze the organization and information provided on the financial report of the 250 most profitable companies in Portugal, particularly their financial statements published on the Internet. After the observation and in-depth analysis of the websites of the above-mentioned companies, for the year 2002, it was concluded that 119 companies (48%) had a webpage on the internet. In what concerns the disclosure of financial information, only 51 (43%) out of the 119 companies had some kind of financial information stated on their websites.