Exploring the Use of Online Corporate Reporting Information N. Rowbottom Andy Lymer University of Birmingham ABSTRACT: This paper explores the use and users of corporate reporting information published online by large companies listed on the London Stock Exchange. Although prior research details the increasing supply of online corporate reporting disclosures, there is a lack of empirical research investigating the use and users of this information. Therefore, this study observes approximately 4.7 million online requests to explore who uses online corporate reporting and what information is used by different types of users. In doing so, it attempts to provide a context in which to inform the tailoring of the content, format and granularity of information to meet different user needs within the next generation of corporate reporting websites that can more readily incorporate user interactivity and information customization as envisaged by the Securities and Ex- change Commission SEC and the Interactive Data Electronic Applications IDEA project. Keywords: Internet corporate reporting; corporate reporting websites; investor relations; user information needs. INTRODUCTION S ince the 1990s, the Internet has become a key medium for disseminating corporate reporting information to users see Beattie and Pratt 2003; Bollen et al. 2006; Hodge and Pronk 2006. The growth of online or Internet-based 1  corporate reporting is purportedly due to a number of different features which distinguish it from paper-based methods of distribution. From a company perspective, it transfers the printing and some of the communication costs to the user and potentially reduces the number of routine investor and stakeholder information requests for example, see Trites 1999; Beattie and Pratt 2001; Gowthorpe and Flynn 2001; Neely et al. 2002; Marston 2004. From a user perspective, the main advantages are that data can be made available to users rapidly and equitably in a form that they can store and subsequently manipulate electroni- We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the U.K. Economic and Social Science Research Council and the assistance of Dr. Amir Allam and Dr. Barry Wilkins in undertaking the wider project from which this paper is based. 1 The term, online reporting, refers to the communication of corporate reporting information via the World Wide Web and the wider Internet. JOURNAL OF EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES IN ACCOUNTING American Accounting Association Vol. 6 DOI: 10.2308/jeta.2009.6.1.27 2009 pp. 27–44 Corresponding author: N. Rowbottom Email: N.Rowbottom@bham.ac.uk Published Online: November 2009 27