Strategic marketing and design consultancy Intershare completed a survey of 70 UK firms, taken from the FTSE 350, to gauge the level of IR website communication.
The results showed corporate websites were let down by their IR capability, with 64 per cent failing to reply to potential investor e-mail enquiries within seven days, and 70 per cent of firms providing no contact names or details of the in-house IR team.
The study's findings also revealed that 49 per cent of companies had no corporate governance statement on their websites, despite the recent high-profile scandals with Enron and WorldCom.
The study - the first in a series of annual surveys by Intershare on UK company IR websites - coincides with the launch of a book on online IR, entitled Real Relations, Virtual World, which was compiled by Intershare in association with the Investor Relations Society.