Online information disclosure in Spanish municipal-owned enterprises. A study based on the compliance with transparency requirements
| Published date | 09 September 2019 |
| Pages | 922-944 |
| Date | 09 September 2019 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/OIR-02-2018-0063 |
| Author | Javier Andrades,Domingo Martinez-Martinez,Manuel Larran,Jesus Herrera |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science |
Online information
disclosure in Spanish
municipal-owned enterprises
A study based on the compliance with
transparency requirements
Javier Andrades
Department of Accounting and Finance, University of Cádiz, Cádiz, Spain
Domingo Martinez-Martinez
Department of Finance, University of Seville, Sevilla, Spain, and
Manuel Larran and Jesus Herrera
Department of Accounting and Finance, University of Cádiz, Cádiz, Spain
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to examine the amount of online information reported by Spanish
municipal-owned enterprises (MOEs) according to the legal requirements indicated in the Spanish Law
19/2013 on Transparency and Good Governance. In addition, the authors analyze how different variables can
affect the extent of online information reported by such enterprises.
Design/methodology/approach –To do this, we conducted a content analysis of the web pages of Spanish
MOEs located in cities with more than 100.000 habitants, as well as those cities that are provincial capitals. To
find information about these enterprises, the authors accessed the General Intervention Board of the State
Administration (IGAE) webpage (www.igae.pap.minhafp.gob.es/sitios/igae/es-ES/Paginas/inicio.aspx). This
sample was composed of 273 enterprises majority owned and controlled by local governments.
Findings –The findings reveal that the amount of information reported by Spanish MOEs, in accordance with
the legal requirements, is quite reduced. The most influential variables for explaining Spanish MOEs’commitment
to information disclosure are population size, political positioning of the local government and reputation.
Originality/value –This study seeks to contribute to the scarce literature on mandatorytransparency in the
public sector as well as to reinforce the degree of compliance with requirements of information disclosure.
Keywords Transparency, Disclosure, Stakeholder, Legitimacy, Institutional, Municipal-owned enterprises
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
At international level, many cases of accounting fraud, financial scandals and political
corruption have proliferated in the public sector in recent years (Pasquier and Villeneuve,
2007; Garcia-Tabuyo et al., 2015). This increase is presumably due to citizens being more
interested in knowinghow public institutions and governments are managing their resources
(Brusca et al., 2016; Saez-Martin, Caba-Perez and Lopez-Hernandez, 2017; Sáez-Martín,
López-Hernandez and Caba-Perez, 2017). As a solution to this phenomenon, the concept of
transparency has gained relevance and today it is configured as a tool to improve the
credibility,legitimacy and confidence ofpublic institutions toward society (Cerrillo-i-Martínez,
2011; Guillamón etal., 2011; Brusca et al., 2016). Also, other researchers have manifestedthat
increased transparency is positively associated with greater efficiency and performance of
public institutions, as transparency is a basic aspect in the process of public accountability
(Caba-Pérez et al., 2008; Biondi and Lapsley, 2014). Conceptually, the transparency term is
Online Information Review
Vol. 43 No. 5, 2019
pp. 922-944
© Emerald PublishingLimited
1468-4527
DOI 10.1108/OIR-02-2018-0063
Received 28 February 2018
Revised 25 September 2018
8 November 2018
29 January 2019
Accepted 16 May 2019
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/1468-4527.htm
The authors declare not to have any potential conflict of interest and that the work described has not
been published previously.
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OIR
43,5
defined by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development(OECD, 2001) as “a
full disclosure of all relevant information in a timely manner”from which it follows that an
excess of information disclosed could negatively affect credibility, legitimacy and confidence
(Cerrillo-i-Martínez, 2011; Grimmelikhuijsen et al., 2013).
This growing concern for improving transparency has had its institutional support in
the approval of laws related to public access to information by governments from different
countries (Pasquier and Villeneuve, 2007; Relly and Sabharwal, 2009; Cerrillo-i-Martínez,
2011). In particular, more than 100 countrieshaveapprovedtheirownregulationon
transparency and public access to information (Saez-Martin, Caba-Perez and
Lopez-Hernandez, 2017). Different authors have stated that regulating on transparency
issues could be essential for democratic governments and as a key aspect to public
management (Guillamón et al., 2011; Garcia-Tabuyo et al., 2015). In this regard, the
regulation on transparency in the Spanish context has been late compared to other
countries, which could be an influential factor for corruption to be spread throughout
society in a generalized way (Garcia-Tabuyo et al., 2016). The report made by
Transparency International on the corruption perceptions in 2016 shows that Spain is
ranked in an interm ediate position and very far f rom the leading countries, w hich are from
Nordic and Anglo–Saxon regions (Transparency International, 2017a, b). Moreover, the
Sociological Research Center in Spain has conducted numerous surveys on citizenship and
the results reveal that one of the main societal concerns is corruption along with
unemployment (Sociological Research Center, 2018).
From a research point of view, both at an international and national level, most of the
academic literature on the public sector has focused on examining the amount of
information voluntarily disclosed by local governments (Gandia and Archidona, 2008;
Serrano-Cinca et al., 2009; Brusca et al., 2016; Tirado-Valencia et al., 2016), public utilities
(Papenfuß et al., 2015) and public universities (Gallego et al., 2011). Nevertheless, the topic of
how enterprises owned by the public administration are reporting on their financial or non-
financial performance is under-researched (Sokol, 2010). Some studies have been conducted
in the context of state-owned enterprises of China (Ferguson et al., 2002) or New Zealand
(Luke, 2010). Focusing on the Spanish context, few papers to date have analyzed the
disclosure of information by enterprises publicly owned. Escamilla et al. (2016) examined the
disclosure of corporate social responsibility (CSR) information reported by 17 publicly
owned urban public transport companies. Garde et al. (2017) examined the amount of social
responsibility information reported by Spanish state-owned enterprises and how different
variables can affect it. To do this, they collected the data by means of a survey administered
to public managers. Royo et al. (2017) analyzed the online information disclosed by a
reduced sample of Spanish state-owned enterprises on their web pages.
In this way, the academic literature has emphasized the need to focus on examining the
transparency level of enterprises publicly owned, which are characterized by the fact that
the public administration has meaningful control through full or majority ownership
(Alexius and Cisneros, 2015; Greiling et al., 2015). Enterprises owned by the public
administration operate at the intersection of the market and the public sector and this
requires that they have to reconcile two diverging goals: create public value and achieving
profits (Khongmalai et al., 2010; Alexius and Cisneros, 2015). Therefore, they are required to
meet informational needs of a large number of stakeholders which involves the need to have
an appropriate accountability system (Grossi and Thomasson, 2015; Denis et al., 2015).
Among the different types of enterprises publicly owned, those companies whose ownership
is majority controlled by local governments deserve special attention because of their
closeness to citizens (Caba-Pérez et al., 2008; Guillamón et al., 2011). Taking as reference the
contributions of Grossi et al. (2015), we can conceptualize such organizations under the
municipal owned-enterprises (MOEs) term whose definition could be configured as those
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Online
information
disclosure in
Spanish MOEs
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