The Impact of Audit Committee Characteristics on CSR Disclosure: An Analysis of Australian Firms

This study examines the influence of audit committee (AC) characteristics on voluntary corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure in the corporate annual reports of Australian listed firms. It develops hypotheses about the relationship between voluntary CSR disclosure and AC characteristics such as size, frequency of meetings, independence, independent chair, financial expertise and gender diversity. Using multiple regression analysis on data collected from the corporate annual reports of 300 listed firms, the study finds that AC characteristics such as size, frequency of meetings, committee independence and gender diversity have a significant positive influence on the level of CSR disclosure. However, there is no evidence that AC characteristics such as independent chair and members’ financial expertise affect CSR disclosure in Australian firms. Based on an additional analysis, the study also sheds some light on the effect of AC characteristics on environmental disclosure. The findings of this study may be of particular interest to regulators, shareholders, investment analysts and managers in assessing CSR disclosure in annual reports, and in strengthening the monitoring and oversight role of ACs.     

Strange bedfellows? Voluntary corporate social responsibility disclosure and politics

We show a reliable association between voluntary corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure and company political interests, which we proxy by company employees’ contributions to political action committees and statewide voting in presidential elections. This relation is most pronounced for the contributions of Democratic employees at companies in states that vote for the Democratic presidential candidate. We also show a positive association between corporate political contributions and excess stock returns. A portfolio strategy of investing based on company size, CSR disclosure intensity and corporate political contributions produces a significant positive mean excess stock return of 4.5 per cent over 3 months following CSR disclosure.     

Voluntary CSR disclosure,institutional environment,and independent audit demand

Using a sample of A-share listed companies on the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges, this study examines the impact of voluntary corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure on independent audit demand in different institutional environments. The sample covers the 2008–2016 period and excludes firms that are required to disclose CSR information. The findings show that compared with companies that choose to not disclose such information, companies that voluntarily disclose CSR information prefer to employ “small” accounting firms for auditing services, although the auditing fees are much higher. However, as the institutional environment improves, this preference is weakened. Further analyses show that this preference is stronger in enterprises where CSR disclosure is driven by strong political motivations and managerial self-interest motivations. Legitimate motivations and economic motivations do not significantly impact the preference for “small” audit firms. Furthermore, this preference is more obvious in enterprises with poor operational performance and low information disclosure quality, and it increases as CSR disclosure level decreases. The study enriches our understanding of the economic consequences of voluntary CSR disclosure and the factors that influence independent audit demand. The results also have implications for the construction and regulation of China’s system for supervising CSR information disclosure in the transitional phase.     

Do Financial Markets Care about Corporate Social Responsibility Disclosure? Further Evidence from China

Corporations increasingly define their corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities as a part of their business. However, is this trend beneficial to investors? Based on an event study methodology and a sample of Chinese listed companies, we extend the literature on voluntary disclosure by exploring the role of CSR disclosure in reducing stock market information asymmetry, as proxied by share price volatility and liquidity. Our results show that the share price volatility after CSR disclosure is lower than before CSR disclosure; however, the trend is that it decreases first and then increases for three months following disclosure. Stock liquidity also significantly improves after CSR disclosure; however, it increases first and then decreases. Additionally, by dividing CSR disclosure into economic (hard) disclosure and generic (soft) disclosure, we find that the reduction in information asymmetry is higher for hard disclosure than soft disclosure, suggesting that although CSR disclosure does indeed have an impact on investors’ behaviour in China, an economic‐based disclosure contributes more substantially. Finally, to better understand the characteristics of the Chinese financial market, we also explore the role of marketisation with results that show that the effect in reducing information asymmetry is greater for companies located in a region with a higher degree of marketisation.     

Corporate social responsibility and financial fraud: evidence from China

This paper investigates the impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on corporate financial fraud in China. We find that CSR scores are negatively associated with fraudulent financial activities, suggesting that CSR firms are less likely to engage in financial fraud. The results also indicate that the negative relation is more significant for CSR performance than CSR disclosure. Additionally, we demonstrate that the negative effect of CSR is more pronounced for firms with voluntary CSR practices, continuous CSR engagements, financial pressure and internal control weaknesses. Overall, we find that CSR is an ethical behaviour that reduces financial misconduct.     

Rules- versus judgement-based accounting disclosure in the UK

In the wake of recent corporate debacles, considerable debate has ensued on the relative merits of rules-based versus judgement-based accounting disclosure. This note contributes to the debate by examining disclosure practices in the UK where a well-established regulatory framework nevertheless upholds the right of corporate managers to exercise discretion.A specific template is developed to examine simultaneously the content of the segment report and the operating and financial review (OFR) to detect disclosure patterns. The findings indicate that companies which provide the fullest and most relevant segment reports provide less voluntary additional disclosure in the OFR than those companies that, superficially, provide less extensive disclosure in their segment reports. It is unclear, therefore, that changes to more rules-based disclosure regimes will automatically lead to an increase in the level of overall disclosure.     

公司特征与公司社会责任信息披露——来自我国上市公司的经验证据

本文在自愿性信息披露的研究框架下,结合公司社会责任理论,对我国上市公司的公司特征与公司社会责任信息披露之间关系进行了实证分析。文章选取了1999年到2004年在上海和深圳证券交易所上市交易的石化塑胶行业的A股公司作为研究样本,通过对年报进行内容分析,构建了公司社会责任信息披露指数。实证检验发现:(1)规模越大、盈利能力越好的公司越倾向于披露公司社会责任信息;(2)公司财务杠杆和再融资需求不影响公司社会责任信息披露;(3)包括上市地点和披露期间在内的披露环境对公司社会责任信息披露有显著影响。文章还对公司社会责任信息的提供者、使用者和监管者提出了建议。     

Quality of financial reporting: evidence from the listed Saudi nonfinancial companies

This study assesses the quality of information disclosed by a sample of nonfinancial Saudi companies listed on the Saudi Stock Exchange. The study also compares the extent of corporate disclosure before and after the creation of the Saudi Organization of Certified Public Accountants (SOCPA). We classify information disclosed in the annual reports into three main categories: mandatory; voluntary related to mandatory; and voluntary unrelated to mandatory disclosure. The sample provided 63% and 66% of the total population of companies listed on the Saudi Stock Exchange in the years 1992 and 1999.In departure from most previous studies conducted in this area of research, we weighted the indexes of disclosure by the mean and median responses of seven users of the annual reports in Saudi Arabia. The results of both unweighted and weighted indexes are reported. The outcome of the analysis indicated a relatively high compliance with the mandatory requirements in all industries covered by the study, with the exception of the electricity sector. As for the voluntary disclosure, whether related or unrelated to mandatory disclosure, the analysis revealed that Saudi companies disclose information more than the minimum required by law. The level of voluntary disclosure, however, is relatively low. The analysis also showed that the creation of SOCPA has had little impact on corporate reporting in Saudi Arabia.     

Private disclosure and financial reporting

This article describes how large UK companies communicate with their institutional shareholders, and investigates how this private disclosure process relates to financial reporting. The article draws from case studies based on interviews with senior executives in 33 UK companies. Four insights into corporate disclosure arise from this case data. Firstly, a private disclosure process to institutional shareholders is outlined. Secondly, the private disclosure activity is recognised as a significant part of a larger corporate decision concerning public versus private voluntary disclosure. Thirdly, a range of factors are identified as encouraging private disclosure. These include the perceived limitations of financial reports (annual reports and interims), both as a disclosure mechanism in their own right and by comparison with private disclosure channels. Finally, despite these limitations, financial reports are recognised as a central component of a larger corporate disclosure system. The article therefore provides a novel insight in the role of financial reports in the larger corporate disclosure process, and ends by exploring new directions for research in financial reporting, including how the wider corporate disclosure system can be reformed in a systematic manner.     

VOLUNTARY DISCLOSURES IN AN EMERGING CAPITAL MARKET: SOME EVIDENCE FROM THE ATHENS STOCK EXCHANGE

Prior research has pointed to the need to subdivide aspects of voluntary disclosure rather than treat this as an amorphous mix. However, questions about the relative reasons for the variations observed across categories of voluntary disclosure remain open to investigation. This paper contributes to that investigation in the context of a European emerging capital market. Three categories of voluntary disclosure are developed (namely, corporate environment, social responsibility and finance-related disclosures) and each category is tested for association with seven company-specific variables (corporate size, gearing, profitability, liquidity, industry, share return and listing status) in the annual reports of 87 companies listed on the Athens Stock Exchange (ASE). The extent of voluntary disclosure is relatively low. Using linear regression analysis, different explanations are found for the separate categories of disclosure based on prior evidence. Interpretation and analysis are offered in the context of the operation of the ASE.     

Voluntary disclosure in the annual reports of an emerging country: The case of Qatar

This study sets out to examine empirically the determinants of voluntary disclosure in the annual reports of 25 listed firms of Doha Securities Market (DSM) in Qatar forming approximately 86% of the total firms incorporated in DSM. It also reports the results of the association between company-specific characteristics and voluntary disclosure of the sample companies. A disclosure checklist consisting of 44 voluntary items of information is developed and statistical analysis is performed using multiple regression analysis. The findings indicate that age, size, complexity, and assets-in-place are significant and other variable profitability is insignificant in explaining the level of voluntary disclosure. However, this paper has contributed to the academic literature that firms in the Middle East provide voluntary corporate information which builds a confidence to the investors in general and Qatar in particular.     

Mandatory CSR disclosure,monitoring and investment efficiency: evidence from China

This study investigates the effect of mandatory corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure on firms’ investment efficiency in China. Using the CSR regulation that mandates a group of listed firms to disclose stand‐alone CSR reports after 2008 as a natural experiment, we find that firms subject to the mandatory CSR regulation have decreased investment inefficiency subsequent to the mandate, especially in cases of overinvestment. This effect is more pronounced for firms with a control‐ownership wedge, state‐owned enterprises (SOEs), and firms having lower institutional ownership. Further analyses find that the reduction of overinvestment is much more significant in industries with high pollution and that the reduction in investment is not due to the CSR spending siphoning off capital used in other projects. We argue that mandatory corporate social responsibility disclosure improves monitoring over firms in China, especially when firms are characterised as having severe agency problems.     

Gender-diverse board and the relevance of voluntary CSR reporting

In this paper, we focus on voluntary corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure, and we test the extent to which the value relevance of CSR reporting is affected by the appointment of female directors. Using a sample of French listed companies belonging to the SBF 120 index from 2001 to 2011, we control for differences in firm characteristics between firms with and without female board membership by using propensity score matching. Our results show that high CSR reporting is more relevant in terms of market value for firms with gender-diverse boards than for firms with completely male directors. This finding holds when we use the accounting-based performance measures, namely, return on assets (ROA) and return on equity (ROE). We also highlight that engaging an external assurance provider for CSR reporting is value relevant for firms without female directors but not value relevant for firms with female directors, suggesting a substitute relationship between gender-diverse boards and CSR assurance. Our results are stable when we consider the presence of at least two and three female directors.     

上市公司自愿性信息披露影响因素研究

自愿性信息披露对于增强投资者系统性保护、提升上市公司治理水平具有重要意义。本文以深市样本公司数据为基础，按上市公司战略性信息、非财务主要信息和财务信息三类信息披露指数，考察公司规模、财务杠杆、经理层持股、公司盈利、外资股、审计费用对于我国上市公司自愿性信息披露的影响。研究表明，我国上市公司在自愿性信息披露方面缺乏充分的内在动机和完善的外在激励机制，自愿性信息披露行为尚侍进一步地系统性规范。     

Corporate social responsibility reporting in financial institutions: Evidence from Euronext

The legitimacy, the identity and the social impact of financial institutions go beyond the generation of revenues for providers of capital, through financial intermediation. Financial institutions bear significant corporate social responsibility (CSR). We produce measures of CSR disclosure and explore the determinants of CSR disclosure practices in a cross section of financial institutions. Working with financial companies whose stocks are listed in the Euronext stock exchange, we find that the extent of disclosure of CSR practices is greater in large companies and also in companies of greater financial leverage. Therefore, increased corporate visibility and financial risk increase stakeholder demand for transparency on the social impact of financial institutions and their CSR practices.     

Do Economic Incentives of Controlling Shareholders Influence Corporate Social Responsibility Disclosure? A Natural Experiment

We evaluate whether voluntary corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure is influenced by the economic incentives of controlling shareholders. To examine this research question, we apply the natural experiment setting based on the Split Share Structure Reform in China. Following this Reform, Chinese state shareholders are allowed to trade their shares in the stock market, which increases their incentives to maximize the market value of the firms that they control. We present empirical evidence of increased CSR disclosure among listed state-owned enterprises after this Reform. This evidence suggests that the economic incentives of key stakeholders are associated with voluntary CSR disclosures.     

Quality of Corporate Social Responsibility Disclosure and Cost of Equity Capital: Lessons from China

This article explores the relationship between the quality of corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure and the cost of equity capital by analyzing the financial data and CSR reports of A-share listed firms in China from 2008 to 2014. The quality of the CSR disclosure is shown to be negatively related to the cost of equity capital of the listed firms. This negative correlation proves to be more prominent among firms of environmentally sensitive industries. Taking the ownership of the listed firms into consideration, it is further confirmed that the negative relationship between the CSR disclosure and the cost of equity capital is of higher significance for state-owned enterprises. Our findings also empirically demonstrate that the quality of CSR disclosure is more negatively related to the cost of equity capital among the large listed firms than the smaller ones.     

Perpetuating traditional influences: Voluntary disclosure in Malaysia following the economic crisis

Prior research on listed companies in Malaysia, Hong Kong and Singapore during and before the 1997 financial crisis has reported a significant association between ownership structure and the extent of voluntary disclosure in annual reports. We examine data for Malaysia after the 1997 financial crisis to assess whether the regulatory reaction to the crisis increased the awareness of disclosure as a tool of corporate governance and reduced the influence of insider domination on voluntary disclosure. We contrast director ownership and government ownership as determinants of voluntary disclosure in Malaysian company annual reports. Additionally, we include consideration of proprietary costs by testing whether industry competitiveness has an impact on voluntary disclosure.We find that director ownership is significantly associated with the extent of voluntary disclosure while government ownership, new governance initiatives and industry competitiveness are not significant in pointing companies towards greater transparency. We conclude that, despite the upheaval of the economic crisis, traditional influences of director ownership and family domination of the board outweigh the effect of government-backed accountability initiatives in determining the extent of voluntary disclosure.     

Corporate social responsibility orientation and textual features of financial disclosures

This paper examines the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) orientation and textual attributes of financial disclosures. Using a large U.S. sample from 1999 to 2017, we find that firms with high CSR orientation provide more readable disclosures and use a less ambiguous tone in their annual reports. These findings are consistent with the notion that managers in CSR-conscious firms adhere to high ethical standards and commit to improving the transparency of their firms' financial disclosures. Our results are robust to alternative measures of readability and CSR performance, potential endogeneity, and sampling methods. Moreover, in a cross-sectional analysis, we show that the impact of CSR on corporate readability/tone ambiguity is more pronounced for firms with weak corporate governance. Overall, the results suggest that CSR serves as a substitute for traditional corporate governance mechanisms to ensure transparent disclosure.