What Do Stakeholders Care About? Investigating Corporate Social and Environmental Disclosure in China

Abstract

This study investigates the social and environmental disclosure practices of socially responsible Chinese listed firms as displayed in their annual reports and corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports from the perspective of stakeholders. A stakeholder-driven, three-dimensional social and environmental disclosure index that integrates the quantity and two aspects of the quality of disclosure perceived by stakeholders is constructed to assess the social and environmental disclosures in firm annual reports and CSR reports. The study results indicate that stakeholders perceive different disclosure types and disclosure items as important to differing degrees. CSR reports provide more stakeholder-relevant social and environmental disclosure than annual reports.