Abstract

This study compares on-line IR(Investor Relations) activities of domestic enterprises with foreign ones performing IR activities through the Internet and presents a desirable direction for domestic companies' IR activities on Internet in future.

Although there are many different types of IR activities, on-line IR prevails currently in the U.S, Japan and Europe owing to its merit of comprehensive and continuous activities interacting with a large number of investors with no limits time and space supported by an explosive increase in the number of the Internet users in proportion to the recent advance of digital technology. On-line IR activities over Internet are considered an effective IR method in that they reduce indirect costs of an enterprise and enable bilateral conversation with numerous customers at the same time.

In this respect, it is time for domestic enterprises to be active in on-line IR activities through transparent management based on global standards. In the U.S, and the U.K, IR consulting companies and organs related to investment in securities have already evaluated objectively the level of on-line activities of enterprises and reported successful cases being a catalyst at activation of on-line IR activities through the Internet. This study analyzes and compares the on-line activities of the leading enterprises in electronic industry including GE from the U.S, sony from Japan, and Nokia from Finland overseas and LG Electronics and Samsung Electronics at home to see the problems and future direction of IR activities of domestic enterprises. In this study, the English IR sites of the enterprises were used for content analysis. The items of analysis were borrowed from the measuring scale prepared by LG Economic Research Institute when it evaluated on-line IR activities of listed domestic companies and KOSDAK listed companies and the items mentioned in <The most required informations Broadcast Network) as well as IR home pages of foreign companies mentioned above.

At first, the structure of initial menu and sub menu on IR home page of each enterprise was examined and then the IR sites were analyzed and compared in terms of the four aspects, such as providing of the information meeting the needs of investors, convenience of information access, bilateral communication, and application of multimedia, based on the measuring scales. the results show that domestic companies are inferior to foreign ones in quantity of information provided, use of multimedia and are poor at making the most of bilateral communications.

In addition, foreign enterprises excel domestic ones in convenience of access. While foreign companies are enhancing their value for investment through active on-line IR activities, domestic companies are pursuing passive on-line IR activities limited to information providing.

A new philosophy and approach is necessary for domestic enterprises to do future on-line IR activities. On constructing IR home page, it is provide them the most relevant information. Besides, the makeup should not be formal and multimedia should be used to draw attention of investors and help them understand contents. It is also necessary to establish user-centered interface for clear communications of information and to be equipped with continuous home page management ability.

In addition to the IR homepage construction, domestic companies should prepare devices helpful in their on-line IR, such as participation of CEO, training of on-line IR experts, and telephone conference between large numbers of people to show advanced IR activities. To be a company trusted and selected by investors, the IR activities presented by enterprises should not just be formal.

This study has several limitations worth noting. first, analysis of IR home pages of enterprises were carried out by a single person, by myself, reducing its objectivity. Second, only on-line IR activity among various different IR activities were examined, and it is impossible to measure the general IR activities of enterprises based on the results of this study. Therefore, this study is designed to help domestic enterprises' on-line activities to find more systematic and strategic ways.