The effect of EDGAR on the financial reporting process: An empirical investigation

Technological changes in recent years have been posited to have an effect on the communication of accounting information. An example of new technology being used in accounting is EDGAR, the SEC's project to provide all public filings on the Internet. A study examines how some filings changed in...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of accounting and finance research Vol. 6; no. 2; p. 18
Main Authors Rogers, Rodney, Brown, Darrell
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Jackson American Academy of Accounting and Finance 01.04.1999
Subjects
Annual reports
Content analysis
Electronic filing
Form 10-K
Information sources
Internet
Language
Letters
Readability
SEC registration
Semantics
Stockholders
Studies
Technological change
Variance analysis
United States > US
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Summary:Technological changes in recent years have been posited to have an effect on the communication of accounting information. An example of new technology being used in accounting is EDGAR, the SEC's project to provide all public filings on the Internet. A study examines how some filings changed in their character from the time prior to EDGAR, when access to the public filings was manual only, to the filings after EDGAR, when access to the filings became easier through the use of the Internet. Form 10-K filings for 23 firms, for 2 years, one pre-EDGAR and one using EDGAR, were analyzed for semantic features and readability. Analysis indicates support for hypotheses predicting increased readability and more interpretative, rather than descriptive, statements in the post-EDGAR 10-Ks.
ISSN:1093-5770