Corporate social responsibility reporting in professional accounting firms

Abstract

This paper examines the corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting undertaken by the 20 largest professional accounting firms in the United Kingdom. Professional service firms are knowledge-intensive organisations, eager to communicate their legitimacy, status and reputation, to an external world. These social evaluations (prestige) allow them to enhance their intellectual capital and consequently charge premium fees and, effectively increasing partner wealth. This investigation undertakes a content analysis of firms' annual reviews, corporate social responsibility reports, websites, and recruitment literature.