The Influence of Corporate Governance and Firm Characteristics on the Timeliness of Corporate Internet Reporting By Top 95 Companies in Malaysia

This study examines the relationship of corporate governance mechanisms and firm characteristics with the timeliness of corporate internet reporting (TCIR) among the top 95 public listed companies in Malaysia based on 2012 market capitalization. This study focuses on three variables corporate governance mechanisms (board independence, board experiences, role duality) and three variables of firm characteristic (firm size, profitability, leverage). Timeliness of corporate financial reporting has been viewed as one of the qualitative attributes to any stakeholders due to the needs of fresh information to make good investment decisions. Independent variables in the study are examined from the 2012 annual report while TCIR is based on a website snapshot using a checklist adopted from Abdelsalam and El-Masry (2008). This study can be related to agency theory due to the role played by management as the agent and directors as the principal and as well as signaling theory which explain that the level of timeliness and disclosure can be used to differentiate companies from each other that based on quality and performance. The results reveal that there is a significant negative relationship between the board independence and TCIR but also reveal a positive relationship between the age of directors, profitability and leverage. Positive relationship shows more experience directors, high profitability and leverage companies may provide timely corporate internet reporting to users. However, the results also indicate that there is no significant difference between the length of directors' services and firm size with TCIR. (C) 2016 Published by Elsevier B.V.