Disclosure media for social and environmental matters within the Australian food and beverage industry

Abstract

Historical studies that have examined the extent and quality of Corporate Social Disclosure (CSD) have limited their analysis to annual reports. However, there is growing evidence that companies use other media to communicate their corporate social and environmental performance (Frost et al., 2005; Unerman et al., 2007). This paper assesses the appropriateness of relying exclusively on analysis of CSD within annual reports in developing an understanding of CSD practices. This paper applies an industry‐specific CSD framework to the annual reports and websites of a sample of companies. The paper finds that the companies utilised corporate websites for their CSD. Annual reports and corporate websites were used for reporting different types of CSD information. This indicates the need for researchers to consider including multiple reporting media sources in their CSD analysis.