Market participants are increasingly calling on public companies to provide more transparent and convenient information. In this chapter, we explore how Canadian public companies can meet these expectations by making their communication (including and beyond traditional continuous disclosure documents) and engagement practices both clearer and more user-friendly. Through our review of all TSX 60 issuers' corporate websites, we identify principal barriers to having a user-friendly and effective website, and provide practical tools to optimize usability and stakeholder engagement. More generally, we discuss how leveraging a company website, making use of notice-and-access, hosting hybrid-virtual meetings and making (appropriate) use of social media outlets all provide enhanced opportunities for a company to more effectively convey its strategy and business plans, and foster long-term viability.
This chapter appears in the 2019 edition of Davies Governance Insights, our comprehensive annual report on the trends and issues most important to Canadian public companies.
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