If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) is an important new information and communication technology for the electronic communication of business and financial data. International research shows unacceptably low levels of awareness and adoption of XBRL. This paper aims to investigate the level of awareness of XBRL in South Africa among chartered accountants. Furthermore, it aims to consider the factors influencing adoption of XBRL and the impact of the economic circumstances on the decision to adopt XBRL. Design/methodology/approach -The research was conducted with data collected through a structured, self-administered web-based survey sent to 11,458 chartered accountants. Chartered accountants will be primarily responsible for the implementation of XBRL at organisations. Findings -The findings are largely in line with international studies, indicating a low level of awareness and slow adoption of the new technology. The major reasons cited for not adopting XBRL are that it is not yet mandatory in South Africa to do so and in the view of the respondents there is not any benefit in adopting XBRL. The results indicated that the economic circumstances did not have any effect on the decision to implement XBRL, be it either to implement or not to implement XBRL. Originality/value -It is concluded that the business case for XBRL, internationally and in South Africa, should be made stronger for awareness and adoption rates to improve. The adoption of XBRL is, by implication, important and relevant to everyone with an interest in information management.

eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) is an important new technology for the electronic communication of business and financial data and, by implication, relevant to, inter alia, chartered accountants. Because research in Australia and the USA showed unacceptably low levels of awareness and understanding of XBRL, research was conducted to determine the levels of awareness and understanding of XBRL in South Africa. The study was limited to chartered accountants. The results showed that the majority of chartered accountants in South Africa are currently unaware of XBRL and few fully understand it. In spite of these findings, the majority of respondents acknowledged the fact that it was necessary for either them or someone in their organisation to investigate the matter of XBRL in the near future.

The purpose of this study was to develop a measurement instrument to measure the quality of Internet investor relations (IIR). This study will aid future research to examine IIR and provide guidance to companies in the development of an IIR strategy. The development of the instrument was based on best practice guidelines issued by the Investor Relations Society, an extensive literature review and a pilot study. The result was a measurement instrument that consists of 346 attributes.Quality is assessed by measuring content as widely as possible, by including attributes to measure the accessibility, navigation and timeliness of information, and by allowing for the measurement of attributes as being partially available based on breadth, usability and timeliness considerations. The reliability and validity of the measurement instrument was confirmed on the basis of the measurement results of a sample of 85 JSE-listed companies.

Background: Although research shows that almost all listed companies have corporate websites with dedicated investor relations (IR) sections that enable companies to ‘push’ information to investors, it was argued that such an asymmetrical approach to communication is insufficient for companies wishing to exercise good IR. The purpose of this study was to test the effectiveness of the Internet to act as a mechanism to achieve more interactive communication between companies and investors.Objectives: The objectives of the study were to measure the responsiveness, timeliness and relevance of companies’ responses to e-mail requests, and to test for the determinants (size, market-to-book ratio, profitability, leverage and liquidity) thereof.Method: The mystery investor approach and a content analysis were used to study the e-mail handling performance of companies. The associations between company-specific characteristics were statistically tested.Results: It was found that the e-mail handling performance of companies in this study was poor compared with previous studies. Significant relationships between company size and responsiveness and relevance, and between market-to-book ratio and relevance were reported, as well as between the contact method used to request information and relevance and the use of social media and timeliness.Conclusion: Specific areas where companies could improve their investor communications were identified. The need for further research was discussed to explain some of the relationships found, as well as those not found, in contrast to what was expected. Future research is warranted to examine the relationship between the e-mail handling performance of companies and information asymmetry and the cost of equity of companies.

The use of corporate websites as communication medium may contribute to good governance and specifically transparency as one of the basic principles of governance, mitigating the effect of the agency problem. The primary objective of this study was to ascertain the link between voluntary corporate website disclosure and information asymmetry for the smallest JSE-listed companies. Rule 26, as issued by the LSE for its AIM-listed companies, was used as proxy for disclosure while the bid-ask spread stood as a proxy for information asymmetry. The results of a content analysis showed that the majority of smaller listed JSE companies are not on par with their UK counterparts. Using agency theory, it was argued that if information voluntarily disclosed by companies on their corporate websites is useful to investors, it should theoretically decrease information asymmetry. Although empirical evidence of a negative relationship between disclosure and the bid-ask spread was found, the relationship changed to not significant once controlled for market capitalisation. Besides the bid-ask spread, the association between disclosure and both share price volatility and share turnover (both as alternative proxies for information asymmetry) was tested, and both were found non-significantly related to disclosure. The results reported do suggest that the Rule 26 minimum corporate website disclosures may not be sufficient in persuading investors to change their trading behaviour. Although there has been no research on the voluntary compliance and effect of Rule 26 website disclosure on information asymmetry using JSE small-cap data, a major limitation of this study is that generalisation of results is limited to small listed companies.