CORPORATE WEBSITES AS A STAKEHOLDER COMMUNICATION CHANNEL: A COMPARISON OF JSE-LISTED COMPANIES' WEBSITES OVER TIME

Between 2012 and 2015, increases in bandwidth in South Africa and implementation of the InternationalFramework created incentives for corporate website disclosure behaviour to change. We apply the institutional isomorphism theory to explain the observed behaviour. Using unique longitudinal data, this study examined whether 58 Johannesburg Stock Exchange-listed companies improved their corporate websites as a stakeholder communication channel. A checklist of 25 items, measuring annual report, extra content and technology features was used to complete the content analyses of the corporate websites in 2012 and 2015. Various parametric and non-parametric statistical tests were conducted to ascertain the significance of the changes over the period, as well as potential factors associated with these changes. The results indicate that although the use of technical features improved for the sample companies, and extra content were provided, financial reports were increasingly dominated by PDF formats with a decrease in the provision of HTML reports from prior levels. The study's contribution is that it provides some evidence that technology may be an enabler of general website usability, but not necessarily for financial reports. HTML financial reporting might suffer from 'negative' mimetic isomorphism, where undesirable disclosure behaviour is mimicked. This paper opens up avenues for further research into underlying reasons for temporal changes in corporate disclosure practices.