Determinants Of Corporate Social Responsibility Disclosure Research Articles

Digital transformation and governance heterogeneity as determinants of CSR disclosure: insights from Chinese A-share companies

Purpose In this fast-changing world, digitization has become crucial to organizations, allowing decision-makers to alter corporate processes. Companies with a higher corporate social responsibility (CSR) level not only help encourage employees to focus on their goals, but they also show that they take their social responsibility seriously, which is increasingly important in today’s digital economy. So, this study aims to examine the relationship between digital transformation and CSR disclosure of Chinese A-share companies. Furthermore, this research investigates the moderating impact of governance heterogeneity, including CEO power and corporate internal control (INT) mechanisms. Design/methodology/approach This study used fixed effect estimation with robust standard errors to examine the relationship between digital transformation and CSR disclosure and the moderating effect of governance heterogeneity among Chinese A-share companies from 2010 to 2020. The whole sample consists of 17,266 firms, including 5,038 state-owned enterprise (SOE) company records and 12,228 non-SOE records. The whole sample data is collected from the China Stock Market and Accounting Research, the Chinese Research Data Services and the WIND databases. Findings The regression results lead us to three conclusions after classifying the sample into non-SOE and SOE groups. First, Chinese A-share businesses with greater levels of digitalization have lower CSR disclosures. Both SOE and non-SOE are consistent with these findings. Second, increasing CEO authority creates a more centralized company decision-making structure (Breuer et al., 2022; Freire, 2019), which improves the negative association between digitalization and CSR disclosure. These conclusions, however, also apply to non-SOE. Finally, INT reinforces the association between corporate digitization and CSR disclosure, which is especially obvious in SOEs. These findings are robust to alternative HEXUN CSR disclosure index. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the negative relationship between corporate digitalization and CSR disclosures is more pronounced in bigger, highly levered and highly financialized firms. Originality/value Digitalization and CSR disclosure are well studied, but few have examined their interactions from a governance heterogeneity perspective in China. Practitioners and policymakers may use these insights to help business owners implement suitable digital policies for firm development from diverse business perspectives.

Determinants of CSRD in non-Asian and Asian countries: a literature review

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to review the current status of research works on corporate social responsibility disclosure (CSRD) in both non-Asian and Asian countries. It seeks to provide an overview of existing literatures to facilitate future research.Design/methodology/approachThe present study used the content analysis of 64 empirical research papers from 41 countries from 1990 to 2020 to show the rapid development of and global focus on CSRD. Various CSRD measures had been used in previous researches on the extent and quality of disclosure.FindingsCompany characteristics, namely, company size, age, profitability, industry, share price performance and corporate governance mechanisms and their impact on CSRD, were investigated. Crucial variances between the determinants of CSRD in non-Asian and Asian countries were also reviewed. In non-Asian countries, especially the advanced ones, specific stakeholders such as regulators, the environment, shareholders, ownership and media are considered very significant in the disclosure of CSR information. Meanwhile, in Asian countries, CSRD is more affected by external strength and stakeholders, which include international capital markets, creditors, the environment, international media and ownership.Research limitations/implicationsThe determinants of CSRD, namely, community, workplace, environment and marketplace issues received very little pressure from the public. This paper suggests that there is a need for more studies examining CSRD in non-Asian and Asian (emerging) countries.Social implicationsBusiness organisations in non-Asian and Asian countries should take social practices into consideration in their CSRD decision-making. This review highlights the significance of merging organisational and social activities.Originality/valueThis study adds value by examining CSRD aspects that were not reviewed in previous studies on CSRD in non-Asian and Asian countries. This study provides a comprehensive review of the determinants of CSRD in both non-Asian and Asian countries.

Determinants of CSR disclosure: an evidence from India

PurposeThis paper aims to undertake an empirical investigation on firm characteristics determining corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure and its subcategories such as environmental, social and governance disclosures.Design/methodology/approachThe sample consisted of listed companies in BSE 500 index for a period of 10 years from 2007 to 2016. Panel data regression method is used for the analysis. Seven variables are analyzed, namely, firm age, financial leverage, firm size, foreign ownership, promoter ownership, export performance, innovation and firm popularity.FindingsThe result shows that firm age and financial leverage are positively influencing CSR, environmental and social disclosure score but both are negatively influencing governance score. Firm size is positively associated with all four disclosure scores. Among ownership variables, foreign ownership shows a positive influence and promoters ownership shows a negative influence towards CSR, environment and social disclosures. No association is found between both ownership variables and governance disclosure score. Further analysis also finds that there is a difference in this relationship during crisis period.Research limitations/implicationsThe study focuses only on listed companies in Indian capital market. In terms of implication, theoretical bases discussed in the literature review and hypotheses development are mostly validated.Practical implicationsThe findings are important for the firm, stakeholders and policymakers. A firm may think about appointing experts in CSR to spend the amount wisely and improve CSR disclosure to compete in the international market; stakeholders have to pressure the firm to provide more CSR disclosure and for policymakers this study study provides useful inputs to design legal framework on CSR.Originality/valueThe measurement of CSR disclosure using environmental, social and governance (ESG) score is novel in Indian context, even though the methodology is often used in literature.

The Association between Corporate Governance and Corporate Social Responsibility Disclosure - Evidence from Gulf Cooperation Council Countries

This study investigates the possible association between corporate governance (CG) and disclosure of corporate social responsibility (CSR) by listed companies in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. An un-weighted CSR disclosure index including 41 information items has been developed to gather suitable information from corporate annual reports of 246 sampled listed companies from the six GCC countries covering the 2016 financial period. Five independent variables represent CG factors (board size, non-executive directors, role duality, female directors and size of the audit committee) in addition to three company characteristics (firm size, profitability and type of industry) are control variables in six regression models. Findings of regression models reveal that only board size and non-executive directors are determinants of CSR disclosure; conversely, no significant association is found between CSR disclosure and the other three CG variables.

Determinants of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Disclosure in Developed and Developing Countries: A Literature Review

AbstractBased on a survey and content analysis of 76 empirical research articles, this article reviews the factors driving Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) disclosure in both developed and developing countries. We find that firm characteristics such as company size, industry sector, profitability, and corporate governance mechanisms predominantly appear to drive the CSR reporting agenda. Furthermore, political, social, and cultural factors influence the CSR disclosure agenda. We find crucial differences between the determinants of CSR disclosure in developed and developing countries. In developed countries, the concerns of specific stakeholders, for example, regulators, shareholders, creditors, investors, environmentalists and the media are considered very important in disclosing CSR information. In developing countries, CSR reporting is more heavily influenced by the external forces/powerful stakeholders such as international buyers, foreign investors, international media and international regulatory bodies (e.g. the World Bank). Furthermore, in contrast to developed countries, firms in developing countries perceive relatively little pressure from the public with regards to CSR disclosure. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment

Value Relevance of Accounting Numbers : Determinants of Corporate Social Responsibility ( CSR ) Disclosures of Islamic Banks in Malaysia

The objective of this study is to examine whether corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosures are influenced by the bank specific factor namely bank leverage, size and profitability in Islamic bank in Malaysia. It relates to the value relevance of accounting numbers which intended to assess how well accounting numbers reflect the determinants of CSR among Malaysian Islamic Banks. The determinants of CSR disclosures are investigated using both the Stakeholder Theory and the Agency Theory. This paper hypothesized that lowly leveraged banks will tend to make larger donations than highly leveraged banks. Therefore, leverage negatively influences the disclosure of CSR. Large and profitable banks will tend to be involved in social role than small and less profitable banks. Thus, there is a positive association between corporate social role and the bank's size and profit.

CSR disclosures and its determinants: evidence from Malaysian government link companies

PurposeThe main aim of this study is to assess the level of corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure of 44 government‐linked companies (GLCs) listed on Bursa Malaysia and to ascertain the relationship of certain company characteristics; namely size, age, profitability and leverage on the total CSR disclosure from the year 2005 to 2006.Design/methodology/approachContent analysis is deployed to determine CSR disclosure. A disclosure index consisting of 16 items was developed based on four general themes: human resource, marketplace, community and environment to assess the disclosure level. The relationship between company characteristics and total disclosure was examined using multiple linear regression analysis.FindingsThe major finding of this study is that the theme of disclosure has shifted from human resource to marketplace. This is followed by human resource, community and, finally, environment. Ironically, companies are not only disclosing good news, but also bad/negative news. This study provides further evidence that is, to a certain extent, some GLCs have influenced other companies' practices to disclose CSR information. Company size was found to be positively significant associated with the total disclosure. The remaining variables were found to be insignificant in explaining the total disclosure.Originality/valueThis is the first paper that looks into CSR activities, extent, themes and the determinants of CSR disclosure in the annual reports of Malaysian GLCs. The Malaysian Government, Bursa Saham, Security Commission and other relevant parties could take heed of the findings to further improve CSR awareness, practices and disclosures and quality in GLC.