L'information financiere incrementale publiee sur les sites Web des societes Canadiennes (French text)

The objective of our thesis is to study the impact of the Internet on the disclosure strategies of firms. Given the lack of theoretical support available in the current Internet reporting literature, we first examine how the Internet can be incorporated into the Gibbins-Richardson-Waterhouse (GRW, 1990) disclosure management framework. The purpose is to compare the information disclosed under Internet financial reporting (IFR) to that filed under SEDAR-the benchmark for traditional financial reporting (TFR)-for a preliminary sample of firms listed on the TSE 300. This comparison will enable us to test for differences between IFR and TFR. Secondly, based on a random sample selected from Stock Guide Data Base, we shall use an enhanced version of the Botosan (1997) disclosure index scoring sheet to measure the difference between the quality of disclosure on the Internet and that conveyed by traditional media as presented on SEDAR. Finally, given that, unlike TFR, disclosure of incremental information on Web sites is optional and dependent on the discretion of managers, we analyze its determinants. Our objective is to test if these determinants are the same as those identified in the literature on the quality of voluntary disclosure under TFR.; Our survey of the financial information disclosed in traditional financial reporting (TFR) as compared with Web-site disclosures for a random sample of Canadian companies documents a significant difference between TFR and IFR, as well as wide variability in the way sample firms use IFR content, format, and technology. We interpret this variability in the incremental difference of IFR over TFR as an indication that a firm's ritualistic or opportunistic behaviour under IFR does not differ from its behaviour under TFR. Thus, the adapted GRW (1990) conceptual model seems capable of supporting future research on the management of financial disclosure on corporate Web sites.; A thorough content analysis of corporate Web sites and the CFT confirms that information available on the Internet is primarily incremental. Our multivariate analyses of the determinants governing the decision to disclose more financial information on the Internet show that pressure from investors, the complexity of the CFT, the search for visibility, and the threat of litigation all influence the management of financial disclosure on the Internet. In line with the findings obtained by Richardson et al. (1999) in their work on MD&A, our results lead us to conclude that the Internet is part of the firm's overall disclosure package.