Business Groups and CSR Report Quality

Abstract

Prior literature has provided evidence that corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting is an outcome for firms to responds to external institutional demands in order to exchange resources from stakeholders. In this study, we further argue that CSR reporting reflects corporate strategies so that firms may diplomatically adjust the quality of the reporting in order to prevent critical information from hostile stakeholders such as competitors. We investigate our arguments based on a sample of 100 business groups in Taiwan during 2012-2013. We find that product diversification of a business group is positively related to its CSR reporting quality. But this positive relation is less salient for domestic marketed oriented business groups than those international oriented. Furthermore, the link between product scope and CSR reporting quality is prominent for business groups with a focus on developing country markets than for those with a focus on developed country markets. Our findings suggest that CSR repo...