Abstract
CSR Reporting is an essential mechanism for ensuring the transparency and accountability of companies towards sustainability performance. To further promote that sustainable development agenda, CSR-related regulations and policies have emerged worldwide, including in Pakistan. Therefore this study assesses the quality of corporate social responsibility in annual reports issued by firms listed at the Pakistan Stock Exchange. This study has operationalized the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) principles for examining the quality of CSR disclosures. The paper sample comprised 540 annual reports of 90 financial or non-financial companies from the years 2012 to 2017. Content analysis is performed to look for six quality principles and measures, i.e., balance, comparability, accuracy, clarity, reliability, and timeliness. Results suggested that most Pakistani firms provide precise and on-time information and put less emphasis on the balance of information and comparable information. Moreover, this study also highlighted that organizations should implement the GRI principle for disclosing qualitative CSR report.
Highlights
Published: 15 October 2021CSR Reporting is an essential instrument for ensuring the transparent information of companies towards sustainable performance
This study aims to examine the quality of the information through the principles for defining reporting quality by Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)
The empirical content in this paper is based on the annual CSR reports published by the 90 companies listed on the Pakistan stock exchange from 2012–2017
Summary
CSR Reporting is an essential instrument for ensuring the transparent information of companies towards sustainable performance. Both shareholders and stakeholders demand financial as well as non-financial information for sustainable value creation. Stock exchanges worldwide have placed extra pressure on standard setters and listed companies to disclose CSR information [1]. Issuance of CSR reports is becoming a norm among various largest companies globally [2]. Despite an increasing trend toward the publication of CSR reports, the quality of these reports is a contentious issue [3]. CSR reporting has been criticized for its lack of relevance and credibility [4] and its failure to impact sustainable development [5]. The quality of the information is vital to enabling stakeholders to make sound and reasonable performance assessments and take appropriate actions
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