The U. S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) initiated its XBRL Voluntary Filing Program (VFP) on the EDGAR System by its Final Rule on March 16, 2005

摘要

This study focuses on IS and financial reporting competencies since IS and financial reporting are the two aspects that are the essence of the innovation represented by XBRL. Specifically, we examine the following question: "Did the impetus for the adoption of XBRL stem from the technological or financial side of the executive team?" Consistent with our expectations, we find that executives' organizational roles and competencies play a significant role in the adoption of new financial reporting technology. Unsurprisingly, CEOs have the strongest influence on voluntary adoption of XBRL, both positive and negative. CEOs with IS competencies have a strong positive influence on voluntary adoption of XBRL. Surprisingly, and ironically, financial reporting competencies appear to be a negative rather than a positive factor in the voluntary adoption of XBRL, regardless of whether those competencies are possessed by the CEO or CFO. This finding has important implications for policy makers, regulators and proponents of XBRL seeking to obtain the support of executives to adopt XBRL in non-mandatory XBRL jurisdictions or new voluntary programs such as the use of inline XBRL that might be initiated by the SEC in the future. These stakeholders should concentrate on communicating with executives (both CEOs and CFOs) with financial reporting competencies to persuade them of the benefits of XBRL for financial reporting. Otherwise, there is a hitherto unrecognized risk that executives who might be assumed to be aligned with the financial reporting objectives of XBRL could in fact be barriers to its adoption and proliferation.