The Mediating Role of Attitudes in Using Investor Relations Websites

ii Public listed companies have been utilising their web presences to achieve many different goals including serving their Investor Relations (IR) functions. These functions can be regarded as effective when their intended users are satisfied with the information and facilities provided on companies ’ IR websites. Many studies indicate that user behaviours such as adoption, purchase decision and repeat use are reliable surrogates for website effectiveness. While some studies focus on online IR attributes as necessary for IR websites, few studies examine investors ’ perceptions and behavioural outcomes as a result of their uses of IR websites. This study relies on the Dual Mediation Hypothesis (DMH) model which predicts investors ’ behavioural intentions as the consequences of their perceptions of IR websites and companies ’ brands, mediated by attitudes. This study validates the DMH model which has been commonly used in a product-purchase environment into an IR context. To gain a deeper understanding of the influence of attitudes, the original DMH model was modified to include specific perceptual antecedents of two attitudinal constructs which are deemed important in the application of the model beyond its common use. This study finds that investors ’ behavioural intentions are the outcomes o