The impact of corporate characteristics on social responsibility disclosure: A typology and frequency-based analysis

Abstract

Since the mid-1970s a number of studies have investigated the nature and frequency of corporate social responsibility disclosures, their patterns and trends, and their general relationships to corporate size and profitability. This study seeks to extend our knowledge of the relationship between a number of corporate characteristics and specific types of social responsibility disclosures, based on an extensive sample of U.S. corporate annual reports. Corporate size and industry category are found to correlate with certain types of disclosures while the existence of a corporate social responsibility committee appears to correlate with one particular type of disclosure.