Best practices in managing investor relations web sites: directions for further research

This study aims to suggest areas for future research on the quality of Internet investor relations based on a structured analysis of investor relations activities within companies with a high-quality investor relations website. The study is based on six case studies and examines the organizational structure and processes behind four high-quality investor relations websites and two low-quality sites. The study shows that there are particular managerial practices within companies with high-quality investor relations websites, for six of the seven elements studied. These results indicate that future research on the quality of Internet investor relations should address variables that reflect differences in managerial capabilities and organizational structures with respect to investor relations activities. The relevance of such variables also has theoretical and methodological consequences for future studies. With respect to research on the development and maintenance of investor relations websites within the information management literature, our study shows that the design of investor relations websites has a number of specific features, which may provide useful insights that could be applied in the context of other websites.