Human Capital disclosure on LinkedIn : A study on ownership structure and human capital disclosure in Sweden and Norway

• Main Authors: Azelius, Carl, Johansson, David
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: Internationella Handelshögskolan, Högskolan i Jönköping, IHH, Företagsekonomi 2019
• Subjects: Human Capital disclosure; LinkedIn; Ownership structure; Agency theory; Legitimacy theory; Business Administration; Företagsekonomi
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hj:diva-43692

Background: Human capital disclosure is a widely examined topic by scholars, previous studies has mainly focused on annual reports and companies webpages. However, during the last decade, social media has grown in importance and it represent a new way for companies to interact with stakeholders. The increased interactivity provided by social network sites have made it one of the most important communication tools for companies to interact with stakeholders. One of the larger social media, LinkedIn has received little attention by researchers, only one previous study has investigate human capital disclosure on LinkedIn. Previous research has examined different corporate disclosure in connection to ownership structure. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between ownership structure and human capital disclosure made by companies in Sweden and Norway via LinkedIn. Method: This study is conducted with a quantitative methodology, investigating a sample of 150 companies from Sweden and Norway. Human capital disclosure on LinkedIn are analysed through a content analysis and a regression analysis to test the hypothesis in this study. Conclusion: The results confirm the hypothesis that a negative relationship exists between ownership concentration and the level of human capital disclosure via LinkedIn. This is in line with previous research; however, this study shows that companies in a more digitalized environment disclose more HC information.