Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Corporate social responsibility disclosure'

This thesis provides comparative evidence on corporate social responsibility disclosure (CSRD) practices by many of the world’s largest companies. Specifically, it investigates the relationship between company characteristics, institutional factors, the presence of a voluntary assurance statement, and internal contextual aspects with the extent of CSRD in sustainability reports. The thesis approach is based on legitimacy theory tenets to better explain the motivations of these prominent companies to communicate CSRD.The data collection focuses on the 2009 sustainability reports sourced from 460 highly visible public companies from 44 separate countries. Key Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) items are used as the benchmark disclosure checklist. The empirical results indicate that the average level of overall CSRD is 56.8 percent. Labour practices is the most disclosed theme by companies (66.4 percent) followed by economic (60.2 percent), society (57.0 percent), environmental (56.7 percent), human rights (49.0 percent), and product responsibility themes (46.0 percent).Statistical analysis indicates that high-profile industries, the presence of a voluntary assurance statement and a corporate social responsibility committee positively influence the extent of corporate social responsibility disclosures. Interestingly, companies operating in emerging markets disclose more sustainability information than communitarian or Anglo-American jurisdictions. Consistent with legitimacy theory, these results suggest that companies which are more likely impacted by their community demonstrate higher accountability and transparency by increasing CSRD communication to better address stakeholders’ expectations.Overall, the empirical results have theoretical and practical implications for key stakeholders to improve drivers of CSRD. First, this thesis provides evidence that legitimacy theory can help explain the extent of corporate social responsibility disclosures. Second, this thesis adds new insights on the positive role of the voluntary assurance statements and corporate social responsibility committees in motivating companies to provide more extensive and higher credible sustainability reports.

La thèse traite des conséquences de l’information portant sur la responsabilité sociale des entreprises. Après avoir expliqué l’intérêt de cette problématique et réalisé une revue de la littérature, nous analysons la relation susceptible d’exister entre l’information RSE et les performances RSE en utilisant l’approche de la causalité au sens de Granger. Ensuite, nous portons notre attention sur l’impact de l’information RSE sur les performances de l’entreprise en testant le caractère médiateur ou modérateur de la qualité du système de gouvernance. Pour terminer, nous étudions les effets de l’information RSE sur le niveau d’asymétrie d’information en lien avec la qualité de l’information financière. Les principaux résultats, la contribution de ce travail et les perspectives de recherche sont alors présentés en conclusion
The dissertation includes four chapters. All chapters cover the overall topic: The consequences of corporate social responsibility disclosure. Chapter 1 introduces the motivation of thesis and summarizes an overview of the literature. Chapter 2 investigates the relationship between CSRD and CSR performance using Granger causality approach. Chapter 3 studies the impact of CSRD on financial performance under the moderation of corporate governance quality. Chapter 4 investigates the effect of CSRD to the level of information asymmetry with the presence of financial reporting quality. The main findings, contribution and discussion for future research are presented at the end of thesis

The overall purpose of this research is to understand the quantity (i.e. magnitude and breadth) and quality of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR hereafter) disclosure and its dimensions: environment, human resource, products and consumer and community involvement; and the factors (both observable and non-observable) which influence CSR disclosure and its dimensions in the annual reports by corporations listed at Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE hereafter) of Pakistan. This research uses three widely used theories: legitimacy, stakeholder, and institutional theory to explain the disclosure results. This study used content analysis and survey (questionnaire) methods to collect the required data. In examining the quantity of CSR disclosure, the results revealed that the sampled companies paid more attention to human resource and community involvement related practices (see Chapter 6). Further, the results revealed a significant increase in the quantity of CSR disclosure and its dimensions in 2011. In investigating the quality of CSR disclosure, the majority of the sampled companies made declarative types of disclosure (i.e. aims and actions indicators) and mainly focused on good news (e.g. donations to schools, establishment of hospitals, and sponsorship for environmental awareness programmes etc.). Overall the quality of CSR disclosure was found to be very poor. However the quality of CSR disclosure and its dimensions has improved with the passage of time (2008-2011) (see Chapter 6). Further the results revealed that company’s social visibility (proxied by company size, profitability, environmental sensitivity, and multinational subsidiary) and CSR promoting institutions (i.e. CSR Pakistan, CSRCP, WWF, UNGC, CSR standard setting institutions) are major determinants of CSR disclosure, while corporate governance and financial stakeholders are weak determinants of CSR disclosure and its dimensions (see Chapter 7). In exploring the non-observable factors influencing the CSR disclosure, the results showed that ‘to build company image’, the chairman’s, regulatory institutions’, shareholders’, and non-executive directors’ concerns are the most important factors considered in the decision to disclose CSR information in the annual reports. In investigating the factors considered to be important influences on the magnitude, breadth, and quality of CSR disclosure, the researcher developed three regression models (CSR disclosure extent, CSR disclosure level, and CSR disclosure quality). The results revealed that companies which are operating in an environmentally sensitive sector or want to build company image place substantial importance on CSR issues, cover a range of CSR issues, and provide a relatively rich quality disclosure. In addition to this, the researcher found that a lack of CSR education and CSR reporting support, insufficiency of shareholders demand for CSR information, inadequacy of customers’ interest in CSR information, meagreness of regulatory requirements, and fear of public reaction to sensitive information were perceived to be the major reasons for non-disclosure of CSR information in Pakistan (see Chapter 8). The results revealed that the joint consideration of legitimacy, stakeholder, and institutional theory provides the rich insights and better explains the results than the consideration of a single theory (see Chapter 9).

[ES] A través de cuatro trabajos interrelacionados, esta tesis llena el vacío existente en la literatura al examinar el efecto del Comité de Auditoría (CA) y las características del Consejo de Administración en la divulgación de información RSC. El primer artículo presenta una imagen completa del campo de estudio utilizando dos metodologías: el análisis bibliométrico y el de redes sociales, mapeando el conocimiento de trabajos anteriores y sugiriendo nuevas vías para futuras investigaciones. Este trabajo analizó 242 artículos publicados en revistas indexadas en la Web of Science (1992-2019). El segundo papel revisó la literatura previa sobre RSC y los consejos de administración mediante el análisis de contenido, ofreciendo una imagen novedosa de los impulsores más críticos de su desempeño y divulgación, y proporcionando sugerencias constructivas para guiar la investigación futura. El tercer artículo examina el efecto de las características del Comité de Auditoría y del Consejo de Administración sobre la divulgación de la RSC mediante la aplicación de una metodología de investigación novedosa: el análisis comparativo cualitativo difuso (fsQCA). Esta investigación utilizó una muestra de las 69 principales empresas europeas no financieras en el periodo 2016-2018. Los resultados principales de este trabajo muestran como las estrategias RSC se están formando a partir de determinadas configuraciones de las características del Consejo de Administración y señala como una única dimensión es insuficiente para generar una estrategia eficaz. En este contexto, se debe indicar que existen diversas configuraciones de características óptimas para lograr niveles más altos de divulgación de la RSC. Además, respondiendo a las recomendaciones del segundo trabajo para examinar más a fondo el vínculo entre las características del Consejo de Administración y la verificación del informe de Responsabilidad Social Corporativa, el cuarto trabajo prueba el efecto de los atributos de Comité de Auditoría en la adopción de la verificación. Esta investigación utilizó una muestra de empresas europeas que cotizaron en el índice STOXX Europe 600 entre 2011 y 2018. Los dos primeros trabajos han mostrado como las características del Consejo de Administración tienen un impacto significativo y creciente en la literatura sobre RSC, y como sus prácticas juegan un papel crucial en la gestión del desempeño y la divulgación de la RSC. Los hallazgos también identifican el efecto y los patrones que vinculan las características críticas del Consejo sobre el desempeño de la RSC, así como sobre la cantidad y calidad de la información divulgada. En consecuencia, los hallazgos también trazan posibles vías futuras de investigación en el campo con respecto a los vacíos de investigación. El tercer trabajo sugiere que la divulgación de información sobre RSC se basa en una configuración compleja de algunos atributos del Comité de Auditoría y del Consejo de Administración. Estas características juegan un papel fundamental y, en una combinación adecuada, promueven el logro de altos niveles de divulgación. Los resultados empíricos ofrecen una información valiosa para los profesionales y los gobernantes a la hora de establecer y revisar las directrices sobre la composición del Comité Ejecutivo y del Consejo de Administración. Por último, en línea con la literatura anterior, el cuarto de los trabajos desarrollados encuentra que los atributos del Comité de Auditoría relacionados con su independencia, su tamaño, la existencia de un experto financiero y de un comité de RSC están positivamente vinculados con la verificación de la memoria RSC.
[CA] A través de quatre treballs interrelacionats, aquesta tesi ompli el buit existent en la literatura en examinar l'efecte del Comitè d'Auditoria (CA) i les característiques del Consell d'Administració en la divulgació d'informació RSC. El primer article presenta una imatge completa del camp d'estudi utilitzant dues metodologies: l'anàlisi bibliomètrica i el de xarxes socials, traçant el mapa del coneixement dels treballs ja publicats i suggerint noves vies per a futures investigacions. Aquest treball va analitzar 242 articles publicats en revistes indexades en la Web of Science (1992-2019). El segon paper va revisar la literatura prèvia sobre RSC i els consells d'administració mitjançant l'anàlisi de contingut, oferint una imatge nova dels impulsors més crítics del seu acompliment i divulgació, i proporcionant suggeriments constructius per a guiar la investigació futura. El tercer article examina l'efecte de les característiques del Comitè d'Auditoria i del Consell d'Administració sobre la divulgació de la RSC mitjançant l'aplicació d'una metodologia d'investigació novedosa: l'anàlisi comparativa qualitativa difusa (fsQCA). Aquesta investigació va utilitzar una mostra de les 69 principals empreses europees no financeres en el període 2016-2018. Els resultats principals d'aquest treball mostren com les estratègies RSC s'estan formant a partir de determinades configuracions de les característiques del Consell d'Administració i assenyala com una única dimensió és insuficient per a generar una estratègia eficaç. En aquest context, s'ha d'indicar que existeixen diverses configuracions de característiques òptimes per a aconseguir nivells més alts de divulgació de la RSC. A més, responent a les recomanacions del segon treball per a examinar més a fons el vincle entre les característiques del Consell d'Administració i la verificació de l'informe de Responsabilitat Social Corporativa, el quart treball prova l'efecte dels atributs de Comité d'Auditoria en l'adopció de la verificació. Aquesta investigació va utilitzar una mostra d'empreses europees que van cotitzar en l'índex STOXX Europe 600 entre 2011 i 2018. Els dos primers treballs han mostrat com les característiques del Consell d'Administració tenen un impacte significatiu i creixent en la literatura sobre RSC, i com les seues pràctiques juguen un paper crucial en la gestió de l'acompliment i la divulgació de la RSC. Les troballes també identifiquen l'efecte i els patrons que vinculen les característiques crítiques del Consell sobre l'acompliment de la RSC, així com sobre la quantitat i qualitat de la informació divulgada. En conseqüència, les resultats obtinguts també tracen possibles vies futures d'investigació en el camp respecte als buits d'investigació. El tercer treball suggereix que la divulgació d'informació sobre RSC es basa en una configuració complexa d'alguns atributs del Comitè d'Auditoria i del Consell d'Administració. Aquestes característiques juguen un paper fonamental i, en una combinació adequada, promouen l'assoliment d'alts nivells de divulgació. Els resultats empírics ofereixen una informació valuosa per als professionals i els governants a l'hora d'establir i revisar les directrius sobre la composició del Comitè Executiu i del Consell d'Administració. Finalment, en línia amb la literatura anterior, el quart dels treballs desenvolupats troba que els atributs del Comitè d'Auditoria relacionats amb la seua independència, la seua grandària, l'existència d'un expert financer i d'un comitè de RSC estan positivament vinculats amb la verificació de la memòria RSC.
[EN] This thesis fills the literature gap by examining the effect of Audit Committee (AC) and board characteristics on Corporate Social Responsibility Disclosure (CSRD) in four interrelated articles. The first article presents a full picture of the board-CSR field using two methodologies: bibliometric and social network analysis. Thus, it maps the knowledge of preceding works and suggests new avenues for future investigations to connect board characteristics, Corporate Social Responsibility Performance (CSRP), and CSRD. This article analysed 242 articles published on Web of Science database (WoS) journals (1992- 2019). The second article reviewed the previous board-CSR literature by applying a content analysis method. By doing so, this article offers a novel picture of the most critical drivers of CSRP/CSRD and provide constructive suggestions to guide future research. The first and second articles' main results suggest that little research on the board and CSR field have studied other board variables such as AC characteristics. In addition to that, CSR strategies are forming from several combinations of the board attributes and consider one dimension to be insufficient to generate an effective strategy. In this context, it must be pointed out that there is more than one best possible characteristics combination to achieve higher levels of CSRD. Therefore, building on the first and second articles, the third article examines the effect of AC and board characteristics on CSRD by applying a novel research methodology (fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis). Furthermore, responding to the second article recommendations to further examine the link between board characteristics and the decisions to obtain Corporate Social Responsibility Assurance (CSRA) report, the fourth article test the effect of AC attributes on the adoption of CSRA. The third article used a sample of the top 69 non-financial European companies for 2016-2018. In comparison, the fourth article used a sample of European companies listed on STOXX Europe 600 over 2011-2018. Our first and second articles indicate that board characteristics have a significant and increasing impact on CSR literature. The results also revealed that the board practices play a crucial role in managing CSRP/CSRD-related issues. The findings also identify the effect of the critical board characteristics on CSRP, CSRD quantity, and CSRD quality. Furthermore, our outcomes provide an overarching picture of the patterns and trends of the systematic nexus between board characteristics and CSRP/CSRD quality and quantity. The findings also draw potential future avenues for research in the field regarding research gaps. Furthermore, our results suggest some potential areas of interest for future political reforms of board of directors' guidelines. The third article suggests that CSRD relies on a complex configuration of some AC attributes, for example, independence, financial expert member, chair independence, size and activity, and other board characteristics. These characteristics play a leading part as a recipe ingredient and, in an appropriate combination, promote achieving high CSRD levels. Our empirical results offer multidimensional and valuable insights for professionals, regulators, and policymakers in establishing and revising the guidelines regarding the AC and board of directors' composition. In line with the complementary role of CG and AC mechanisms suggested by prior literature, our fourth article finds that AC attributes related to AC financial expert, AC independence and size of AC, and the existence of CSR committee are positively linked with the adoption of CSRA. However, our empirical analysis further indicates that AC with a higher percentage of financial expert members tends to choose higher assurance scopes.
Dwekat, A. (2021). The Impact of Audit Committee Characteristics on Corporate Social Responsibility Disclosure [Tesis doctoral]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/172178
TESIS

As Islam does not recognize the separation between sacred and secular matters, it requires all economics activities to be carried out in accordance to shariah. As a result, the need for shariah approved companies (SACs) becomes undeniable. Similar to the Western setting, Islamic CSR disclosure has also become an important issue for SACs. Nevertheless, studies on Islamic CSR disclosure are limited. Most of the prior studies focus on CSR disclosure by Islamic financial institution. They also tend to utilize the concept of CSR disclosure from the West, leading to the need for understanding CSR and its disclosure from an Islamic perspective. The aim of this study is to investigate Islamic corporate social responsibility disclosure by SACs in Organization Islamic Cooperation (OIC) countries. Particularly, it is intended to achieve four specific objectives: firstly, to develop an Islamic CSR disclosure instrument that can measure the level of Islamic CSR disclosure; secondly, to document the content and level of Islamic CSR disclosure in the sample of OIC countries; thirdly, to identify the differences in Islamic CSR disclosure across OIC countries; and fourthly, to determine factors influencing Islamic CSR disclosure level in OIC countries. This study applied deductive reasoning based on the concept of tawhid and maqasid ashshari’ah as well as current literature on CSR disclosure to develop Islamic CSR disclosure instrument. Then, the instrument was used as a benchmark for documenting the content and level of Islamic CSR disclosure in annual reports of SACs through content analysis. A total of 90 SACs from Indonesia, Malaysia, and Pakistan were selected as the sample of the study. Next, qualitative comparison analysis was applied to identify the differences in the content of Islamic CSR disclosure across OIC countries. Additionally, quantitative comparison using analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Kruskall Wallis test were also applied to identify whether there was any difference in the level of Islamic CSR disclosure across countries. Lastly, this study performed regression analyses to test six hypotheses formulated based on prior studies and the existing theories. In turn, the findings of the analyses were used to identify the determinants of Islamic CSR disclosure level in the sample of OIC countries. The empirical investigation observed several findings. Firstly, the results of the content analysis show that SACs in the sample countries disclosed 34% of the benchmark, on average. Employee category was considered as the most disclosed category followed by shareholder, community, environment, customer, government, debtor, supplier and other business partners. Secondly, there were noticeable differences in Islamic CSR disclosure by SACs from Indonesia, Malaysia, and Pakistan. In general, Indonesian SACs tended to focus their disclosure on social and environmental issues, whereas Malaysian SACs tended to focus on economical issues. For Pakistani SACs, their disclosure was more religious. Thirdly, the regression analyses found state-ownership, company size, and country variable as significant variables in determining Islamic CSR disclosure. In more specific analyses conducted by category, the results provided evidence for state-ownership, company size, country, profitability, industry sensitivity and media exposure as significant determinants of Islamic CSR disclosure level. All regression models observed in this study can be considered good as the values of adjusted R2 ranged from 37% to 59%. This study may have contribution for knowledge, methodological, theoretical and practical. In term of knowledge contribution, this study introduces the notion of dual responsibilities, Islamic CSR pyramid and Islamic CSR disclosure instrument. For methodological contribution, this study offers three different measurements to gauge the quality of Islamic CSR disclosure, which are quantitative index, comprehensiveness index, and Islamic index. With regard to the theoretical contribution, this study may provide an opportunity to understand CSR disclosure in a well-defined and different cultural that happens to be driven by religion. Additionally, it provides an initial conclusion that CSR from the West has a potential to bridge Islamic accounting and accounting from the mainstream theory. Lastly, the practical contribution of this study is that it may help Islamic capital market regulator in enhancing the screening process of SACs. Additionally, it may guide manager and business practitioners how to operate their business in accordance to shari’ah if they want to remain acceptable in Islamic countries or Muslim majority countries.

This study presented a framework to explain corporate social responsibility disclosure (CSD) in terms of determinants and consequences. The study is dealing with quantity and quality of CSD in both annual and stand alone reports. The framework is based on legitimacy theory as appropriate theoretical background for CSD, and the main idea in this theoretical framework is that CSD is a function of social pressure on companies concerning their social responsibility. The framework has started with explain the level of social pressure at the country level to explain the differences of the level of CSD among countries. It is argued that the interaction between economic level, culture and the level of corporate governance determine the level of social pressure in a given country. The level of CSD at the company level is determined according to two dimensions; the degree of social pressure that face each company and how each company responses to this pressure. It is argued that, on one hand, the interaction between corporate characteristics and media coverage of the company determine the degree of social pressure that face a company and on the other hand corporate governance mechanisms determine how each company responses to pressure. The last point in framework explains that the direct consequence for CSD is improving corporate social reputation. The empirical results support, to large extent, the framework. At a country level, both cultural values and economic level determine the level of social responsibility disclosure in the country. Concerning determinants of CSD at a company level, it appears that quantity of CSD, and to lesser extent quality of CSD, can be determined according to the following variables: corporate size, type of activity, media pressure, board size, the presence of corporate responsibility committee as a board committee, and ownership diffusion. With regard to the consequences of CSD, the empirical evidence indicates that CSD significantly influences corporate social reputation, while it has no impact on corporate market value.

A wide variety of studies analyzed firms’ CSR disclosures through the lens of legitimacy theory.Arguing that CSR disclosure is a communicative tool to legitimize a company’s position in society.The aim of this study was to explore themes that Swedish heavy industrials disclose regardingCSR. To do so, this paper examined CSR reports and press releases of Swedish heavy industrialsfor 2002, 2009 and 2016, through quantitative content analysis. Our paper finds empirical evidencethat there is a convergence of CSR disclosure among Swedish heavy industrials, in terms of contentand quantity. Moreover, this study shows that Swedish heavy industrials use strategies in their CSRdisclosure that deflect attention from- or lower expectations of their business practices. In addition,we found that Swedish heavy industrials are increasingly linking CSR practices to value creation.

Southeast Asia is the rising star of the global market, however, contrary to its impressive economic achievements, many countries in the region have suffered diverse social problems because of economic growth. Given that a key mechanism to hold businesses accountable is their disclosure practices, this study is looking to expand the understanding of the influences of institutional environment and corporate governance on Corporate Social Responsibility Disclosure (CSRD) in six Southeast Asian countries: Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines and Vietnam. A multi-theoretical framework, including institutional theory, agency theory, stakeholder theory and legitimacy theory, was applied. For the purpose of this study, 2013 annual reports of 30 largest companies in the stock exchanges of the six countries were collected. The final sample consists of 171 companies. Firstly, empirical findings of CSRD levels across the countries showed that Thailand has the highest level of disclosure, followed by Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines and finally Vietnam. There were significant differences between the extent of CSRD of the two countries with highest disclosure (Thailand and Indonesia) and the lowest disclosure group (Philippines and Vietnam). The findings are interesting in a sense that the levels of CSRD do not reflect the stages of economic development, and therefore, the differences in CSRD levels could be attributable to the impact of other institutional factors. Secondly, in relation to internal determinants and based on the existing literature and the context of Southeast Asia, six corporate governance practices were identified to examine the impact of corporate governance on CSRD. The results of OLS regression supported the negative impact of block ownership and the positive impact of board size as well as the presence of CSR committee on CSRD. Contrary to the theoretical and empirical expectations, board gender diversity was found to have significantly negative relationship with CSRD, and board independence had no impact on CSRD. These differences could be explained by the context of the study where the presentation of women on board is very low and independent directors might not be wholly independent. Thirdly, in order to examine the impact of the institutional environment on CSRD in a comprehensive way, institutional theory, the Scott’s institutional framework (1995) and existing literature are used to identify relevant institutional factors that potentially influence CSRD. The effect of six institutional factors representing the three pillars, regulative (legal origin and mandatory disclosure), cultural-cognitive (uncertainty avoidance and masculinity cultural dimensions), and normative (the adoption of GRI standard and membership of CSR-related associations), were evaluated in this study. The empirical results indicate that mandatory disclosure, uncertainty avoidance dimension and the adoption of GRI standard have positive impact on CSRD, while the masculinity dimension has negative relationship with CSRD. The findings imply that institutional environment influences CSRD through all the three pillars with some institutional factors have greater impact than others. The study, therefore, has contributed empirically to the existing literature by providing deeper insights into CSRD levels in Southeast Asia, identifying the effectiveness of corporate governance practices in emerging economies and the Asian context, particularly in relation to CSRD, including further examination of the role of diverse external determinants on CSRD. Theoretically, the study is one of a few that have attempted to quantify institutional environment into measurable institutional factors. These factors, hence, could be re-used in future research to advance understanding on the role of institutional environment in shaping a country’s CSRD practice.

Problems related to sustainable development such as environmental issues, human rights, orlabor conditions, are nowadays deeply integrated in our society. It became primordial forcompanies to take into consideration these problems in their business development. For morethan a decade now, car companies started to publish official documents summarizing theircommitments in favor of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) actions. Through thesesustainability reports, car producers disclose information concerning their sustainable policyand bring details to stakeholders on performed sustainable actions. Because publication of sustainability reports is a relatively new phenomenon, a lot of studies still have to be made in this sector. In this way, no main studies were made regarding howCSR actions performed and disclosed by car companies evolved in the past decade. Didcompanies keep focusing on the same type of sustainable actions or did some changes occuron the way they conduct their CSR policies? No trends were available to try to understandhow car companies CSR actions evolved. This thesis is an attempt to fulfill this gap and bringa first set of useful findings on this topic. Based on three different car producers which are BMW Group, Ford Motor Company andMitsubishi Motors Corporation, our study analyses these companies 2002, 2006 and 2010sustainability reports and looks at how CSR actions are disclosed. The purpose is firstly todescribe how companies’ CSR commitment disclosure is evolving between 2002 and 2010and secondly to find explanation to the key trends. In order to achieve this, we used six mainCSR categories (Economic, Environment, Human Rights, Labor Practices and Decent Work,Product Responsibility and Society) and classified disclosed information in relation with thesecategories to create trends. For each of these six categories, sub-categories were used in orderto be more precise in the analysis process of the documents. Results showed an important interest of car producers for the environment category whichrepresents, on average, more than 40% of disclosed information in sustainability reports.Society category trend shows an important increase between 2006 and 2010 which led it tobecome the second most represented category in reports. Other categories trends present amore stable evolution with time. As it is explained more in detail in our analysis part, thisattraction toward environmental issues for car producers can be explained by the badreputation given to car producers in terms of emissions, energy consumption and moreglobally environmental protection. Cultural background and business mindset are alsoinfluencing companies’ choices. Responsive behaviors resulting from stakeholder’s pressureas well as adaptation to a weak regulatory framework are additional elements to explain the key disclosure trends.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is gradually turning into a critical issue in business management. Over the decades, both theoretical and empirical literatures were concentrated on studying the effect of CSR on corporate financial performance. However, the results have been ambiguous and inconsistent. The purpose of this master thesis is to examine the relationship between CSR disclosure and Corporate Financial Performance in Vietnamese large listed firms, both on short-term and long-term profitability for a period of three years, from 2014 to 2016. Focusing the study in Vietnam helps to enrich the existing literature and bridge the research gap in a geographic sense. For the study purpose, different CSR theories such as economic agency, legitimacy and stakeholder theories are reviewed to provide extensive understanding towards CSR approaches. In addition, an overview of the general CSR application in developing countries is put forward to explain the differences between CSR in emerging markets and its manifestation in developed world. Current status of CSR practice in Vietnam and PESTEL analysis are also included to provide a macro analysis of Vietnamese market based on Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Environmental and Legal aspects. In this study, we performed linear regressions on the sample data in order to investigate the effect of CSR disclosure on corporate financial performance. CSR disclosure is measured by using a disclosure index which consists of environmental, social, economic and legal aspects. Content of annual reports and stand-alone CSR reports of each firm is examined and disclosure scoring scale is constructed for the purpose of measuring the level of CSR disclosures. For corporate financial performance, Return on Assets (ROA) and Tobin’s Q ratio were employed as measures of short-term and long-term profitability respectively. The results indicate that, in the short run, there is no significant relationship between CSR disclosure and corporate financial performance. However, in the long run, the study found a positively significant relationship between CSR disclosure and firms’ financial performance. The results are encouraging since it provides an empirical evidence that Vietnamese firms can be both socially responsible and financially successful. It is expected to make Vietnamese firms become more aware of the significance and importance of CSR practice. At the same time, strategic managers and socially responsible investors can take into account the reported results for sustainability and investment decision making processes.

This study focuses on investigating the determinants and consequences of Corporate Social Responsibility Disclosure (CSRD) in Jordan. The study examines factors that influences CSR disclosure extent and quality, such as corporate characteristics (size, gearing, firm’s age, and industry type), corporate governance (board size, number of meetings, non-executive directors, female directors in the board, family directors in the board, foreign members, audit committee, type of external auditors, and CEO duality) and ownership structure (government ownership, institutional ownership, and ownership concentration). A quantitative approach is adopted for this research, and a content analysis technique is used to gather CSR disclosure extent and quality from the annual reports. The sample is withdrawn from the annual reports of 118 Jordanian companies over the period of 2010-2015. A CSRD index is constructed, and includes the disclosures of the following categories; environmental, human resources, product and consumers, and Community involvement. A 7 point-scale measurement was developed to examine the quality of disclosure. This study fills the gap in the literature regarding CSRD in Jordan, and the fact that all the previous studies have ignored charts and images as a measurement of quality. The result shows that the extent of CSRD is higher than the quality in Jordan. Regarding the determinates of CSR disclosures, the following factors were found to have a significant relationship with both extent and quality of CSRD except non-executives, which was only found significant with the extent of CSRD: board size, non-executive directors, firm’s age, foreign members on the board, number of boards meetings, the presence of audit committees, big 4, government ownership, firm’s size, industry type. With regard to CSRD consequences, the result shows that CSRD has a positive and significant impact on company performance (ROA) and market value. This result provides evidence for policy makers (Jordan security commission) of the importance of CSRD and its impact on company’s performance, and that companies should consider this type of disclosure more in their annual reports. They also have to consider introducing new laws that mandate CSR disclosures, since it has many advantages for the companies and society in general.

As Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) disclosure is becoming more common practise amongst companies, it is valuable to understand the underlying factors involved. The Goal of this thesis is to examine if the factors suggested by previous studies seem to have significance in a Finnish sample composed of 31 listed companies. As an ancillary research question linkage between Corporate Governance recommendation deviations and CSR ratings were examined. The research was executed by utilizing raw data from Thomson ONE Banker financial database, public information available in the 2012 annual reports, corporate governance statements and company web sites. This data was used to construct 10 independent variables. The CSRHub overall rating was applied to form the dependent variable. The raw data was then processed using linear regression. The results were limited as in many variables’ case no significance was found. Age and profitability factors alone had an anticipated affect on CSR disclosure ratings, but other variables fell short when trying to demonstrate positive or negative significant linkages. Average age of board members showed negative significant relationship with CSR ratings at a 1 % level, profitability at a 5 % level. The relative homogenous nature of Finnish listed companies can be argued to hinder the results. It is unlikely that the variables used in this thesis have such insignificant affect on CSR disclosure in all situations. It can be argued that the Finnish cultural environment is most likely the cause of the variables’ indifference. Finland is seen as a “model student” of the European Union and this cultural atmosphere might be the single most powerful determinant. More important than any specific company characteristic. It would be highly interesting to see more studies thriving to examine this perspective.

This study examines the depth of audience engagement with six dimensions of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) via the Instagram platforms of pharmaceutical companies. Recent research on the relationship between CSR and health communication has established a robust link between both variables but created a gap on the level of audience engagement. Drawing on Voluntary Disclosure, Agenda Setting and Media System Dependency theories, this study finds that voluntary communication of CSR strategies has the maximum potential to set the agenda for audience engagement on social media. The remodeled digitization of the media has increased the level of media dependency making social media a tool to be leveraged for effective health communication. The results revealed that Community Volunteering had the strongest impact on total audience engagement and revealed that engagement is higher with image posts than video posts. This study is important for the burgeoning field of CSR in the healthcare industry.

I experimentally examine whether disclosure of corporate social responsibility (CSR) investment facilitates cooperation in business collaborations. Business collaborations are essential for firms to maintain their competitive advantage. However, half of all ventures fail. A major reason for this high failure rate is a lack of cooperation among business collaboration partners, known as relational risk. Findings suggest that CSR disclosure leads to greater CSR investment, but does not result in an overall higher level of cooperation. However, CSR disclosure moderates the link between CSR investment and cooperation. When CSR investment is disclosed, cooperation is highest when both managers invest in CSR. Further, managers who invest in CSR are more sensitive to CSR disclosure information than managers who do not invest in CSR. Managers who invest in CSR are more cooperative when they receive a signal their partner also invested in CSR. Managers who do not invest in CSR do not attend to CSR disclosure information and are equally cooperative when partnered with a CSR investor or a non-CSR investor. Finally, when CSR investment is not disclosed, managers who invest in CSR are no more likely to cooperate than managers who do not invest in CSR. Although CSR is widespread, little is known about why managers invest in CSR or disclose CSR information. This study has implications for practitioners and academics on CSR by demonstrating a potential benefit of CSR investment and disclosure, mitigating relational risk in business collaborations.

I experimentally examine whether disclosure of corporate social responsibility (CSR) investment facilitates cooperation in business collaborations. Business collaborations are essential for firms to maintain their competitive advantage. However, half of all ventures fail. A major reason for this high failure rate is a lack of cooperation among business collaboration partners, known as relational risk. Findings suggest that CSR disclosure leads to greater CSR investment, but does not result in an overall higher level of cooperation. However, CSR disclosure moderates the link between CSR investment and cooperation. When CSR investment is disclosed, cooperation is highest when both managers invest in CSR. Further, managers who invest in CSR are more sensitive to CSR disclosure information than managers who do not invest in CSR. Managers who invest in CSR are more cooperative when they receive a signal their partner also invested in CSR. Managers who do not invest in CSR do not attend to CSR disclosure information and are equally cooperative when partnered with a CSR investor or a non-CSR investor. Finally, when CSR investment is not disclosed, managers who invest in CSR are no more likely to cooperate than managers who do not invest in CSR. Although CSR is widespread, little is known about why managers invest in CSR or disclose CSR information. This study has implications for practitioners and academics on CSR by demonstrating a potential benefit of CSR investment and disclosure, mitigating relational risk in business collaborations.

This study investigates the awareness of corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure and practice in Saudi Arabia by investigating how Saudi stakeholders perceieve CSR and the extent of CSR reporting practices among Saudi listed companies, particularly investing how internal and external stakeholders understand CSR and its disclosure. Furthermore this study explores the integration of CSR within Saudi Listed Companies' corporate policies and strategies and the dimensions that affect it, including the local culture, religion, regulation and governance characteristics. Semi-structured interview were used to ascertain the perspectives of CSR among different stakeholders concerning the different dimensions, and content analysis technique was used to analyse annual reports concerning the extent of CSR disclosure. Listed Companies' corporate policies and strategies were explored by both semi-structured interview and content analysis. Overall, it was found the the CSR concept become understandable and there is a development of perspective of CSR in Saudi Arabia. This research also show the CSR disclosure by Saudi listed companies is driven by legitimacy theory. The findings also show the level of of CSR disclosure in Saudi Listed Companies has been increasing recently, particularly during the last six years, with increasing integration in companies' policy and strategy. Furthermore, 'culture' was rated as the greatest contributing factor to CSR in Saudi Arabia.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Corporate Social Responsibility Disclosure (CSRD) have received much attention in the literature. However, a review of previous studies has revealed that the current discussions on CSR and CSRD do not go beyond the disciplinary perspective (e. g. management, accounting, and ethics) and ignore the possibility of conceptualisation of CSR and CSRD based on other values, such as religion. Many of these studies have proposed different theories to explain why corporations disclose or do not disclose social responsibility information. The various CSRD theories exclude religion as a foundation in explaining why organisations should disclose social responsibility information, and also in making assessment of the performance of organisations in terms of fulfilling their obligation to God. These theories have been developed mainly in the context of the liberal market, and may not offer full justification of CSR and CSRD practices in a dissimilar socio-culture, such as the case of Islamic financial institutions (IFIs). While values and principles that have been central to Islamic teaching and philosophy are directly related to the notion of CSR, there are some empirical studies that have attempted to investigate the relationships between those Values and CSR and CSRD. The mainstream of existing studies has tended to examine the gap between the expectation of social disclosure and the actual disclosure practice in Islamic business organisations such as IFIs. In order to understand the practice of CSR and CSRD by IFIs, it is also important to investigate the perception of the managers who are in charge of producing corporate reports, and to understand the reasons and rationales behind disclosing or non-disclosing social responsibility information. In addition, there is a lack of comprehensive studies comparing the practice of CSRD in IFIs with its conventional counterparts, as such a comparison offers an insight into the nature of CSRD in IFIs, which are influenced by the value of Islam. To achieve this objective, this study conducted a mix of qualitative and quantitative research. On the quantitative part, 42 financial institutions, divided equally between IFIs and conventional financial institutions (CFls), were studied. The content analysis method was utilised to compare the extent and level of CSRD in the annual reports between IFIs and CFIs. On the qualitative research side, interviews were utilised to seek the perspectives, attitudes and opinions of IFIs'managers on CSR and CSRD. This study presents evidence that Islamic values have driven the business practice of IFIs and consequently influenced CSR and CSRD. The principle of accountability to Almighty Allah was found as the prominent driver for CSR and CSRD in IFIs. This accountability is based on the relationship between individuals and businesses, and Almighty Allah. Accountability in this context means not only a duty to report performance, but performing ethically in the first place. This notion of accountability from an Islamic perspective provides a different dimension to the concept of CSR and CSRD, which was not identified in the existing framework and literature. This study has therefore contributed to our understanding and knowledge of CSR, and CSRD in particular, in the business environment of IFIs.

Background: In recent years, interest towards Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has increased, more specifically, the economic, environmental, and social impacts large corporations have on society. This has led to the increase in transparency of practices in CSR disclosure, and number of sustainability reports published in general. In particular, the automotive industry has proved to be quite unsustainable, and is heavily focusing on its sustainable impacts. Purpose: The purpose of the study is to answer why practices in CSR disclosure are an increasingly important phenomena, and more specifically, why companies engage in them. This is done by having Volvo Cars as a case study and analyzing its annual and sustainability reports for the years from 2018 to 2020. Method: The framework used to analyze the results is Carroll’s pyramid of CSR, and thus, examining four dimensions of CSR: economic, legal, ethical, and philanthropic. The results were further analyzed through stakeholder theory, in order to distinguish which practices in CSR disclosure were aimed at affecting the company’s primary, secondary, and both primary and secondary stakeholders, respectively, and conclude why companies in the automotive industry engage in CSR. Conclusion: The conclusions of the study are that Volvo Cars is a company, which heavily emphasizes on its sustainable activities and aims at achieving a competitive advantage via its practices in CSR disclosure, by affecting all stakeholder groups. Thus, the reason practices in CSR disclosure are becoming increasingly important is because companies see it as a means of positioning themselves in today’s highly competitive environment, and thus, achieving a competitive advantage.

This PhD thesis is an exploratory study examining the practices of Corporate Social and Environmental Disclosure (CSED) in the annual reports of the manufacturing sector in Jordan over the period 2010-2012. The study is based mainly on empirical investigation of the level and patterns of CSED practices by 66 industrial companies listed in the Amman Stock Exchange (ASE). In addition, it focuses on analysing determinants of the practices of CSED by firms in the manufacturing sector. This study is concerned with the common area between functionalist and interpretive paradigms. Therefore, both quantitative and qualitative methods were employed as a mixed practical approach to collect, analyse and interpret the required data. Specifically, the disclosure index was selected as an appropriate approach to extract quantitative data regarding CSED practices. Additionally, semi-structured interviews were used as a qualitative method to explore the stakeholders' perceptions of the impact of local external factors on CSED practices. The Random-Effect Model was the most appropriate analysis technique to analyse possible relationships between internal factors and the level of CSED, and the stakeholders' views were evaluated through the use of open critical discussion to ascertain the effect of the local contextual factors on the practices of CSED. The results showed the existence of unsatisfactory levels in the practices of CSED during the survey period. Furthermore, the results of the random effect model indicated that the firm size, audit firm and type of financial market were all significant. However, this result of type of financial market coefficients indicated an inverse relationship in explaining the level of CSED practices. Moreover, stakeholders’ views regarding the effect of the external factors on CSED practices showed that the political system, legal system, cultural values and economic development are also significant factors in explaining CSED practices in the corporate annual reports.

Sustainability within the spheres of environmental and social awareness have become increasing salient issues in the world today. This is addressed within the corporate world through Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) disclosure and reporting. However, the reporting and disclosure surrounding such issues remains at a disadvantage in comparison to that of financial reporting. These issues not only govern sustainability and awareness itself but increasing investor and stakeholder decisions concerning firms connected to these issues. This thesis aims to explore the issues encountered today in CSR reporting. It reviews current literature on regional differences, current methods of CSR disclosure, and the drawbacks of current reporting standards. To address these topics, there is a review of the definition of a stakeholder, its development over time and how stakeholders are prioritized and affected by the actions of firms. With the definition of a stakeholder established, the thesis reviews the relationship between different stakeholders and CSR disclosure and how this can be applied in order to increase the quality and consistency of CSR reporting. Finally, trends in CSR and differences within sectors and regions are considered and it is determined that there has to be a development of standardization through a current reporting standard, in order to ensure congruency of information across nations and sectors, allowing investors and stakeholders to make better informed decisions through the provided sustainability information.

This study examines the non-financial performance disclosure practices of 200 of the largest ASX-listed companies. It uses content analysis to investigate the relationships between company financial performance and company characteristics, and the extent of non-financial performance disclosure, in terms of quantity and quality, in annual and sustainability reports from 2014. This study developed a new scoring index based on Balanced Scorecard (BSC) principles and Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) performance, to evaluate the extent of the companies’ sustainability disclosures. The new scoring index, named the Non-Financial Performance Disclosure (NFPD) Index, measures companies’ performances and their ESG frameworks. The index consists of six perspectives: customer, internal business process, learning and growth, environmental, social, and governance. The study used the index as a benchmark or disclosure checklist to collect data from companies’ annual and sustainability reports. A pilot study was undertaken to test the NFPD Index before employing it in the main study. The content analysis outcomes show that the overall average level of non-financial performance disclosure, in terms of quantity, is 36.9%. Among the six disclosure perspectives, governance is the most commonly-reported (51.20%), followed by internal business process (40.27%), customer (38.00%), environmental (36.59%), learning and growth (25.69%), and social (30.67%). Meanwhile, in terms of quality, the overall average level of non-financial performance disclosure is 53.33%. The governance perspective is still the most commonly-disclosed (64.44%), followed by internal business process (60.43%), customer (58.72%), environmental (52.43%), learning and growth (48.20%), and social (30.67%). These results indicate that companies disclose more information from a governance perspective in their annual and sustainability reports than from any other perspective, in terms of both quantity and quality. The study found positive associations between company financial performance (return on assets, return on equity, and earnings per share), company characteristics (company type, company size, and company age), auditing firm, and the extent of non-financial performance disclosure. All but one of the hypotheses in this study have been accepted. More specifically, the statistical analysis indicates that return on equity, earnings per share, company type, company size, company age, and auditing firm positively influence the quantity and quality of non-financial performance disclosure. However, the results showed no relationship between return on assets and non-financial performance disclosure in terms of either quantity or quality. Stakeholder and legitimacy theories were used in this study, to clarify specific areas of corporate social responsibility practices in Australia. Overall, by using the six perspectives of non-financial performance disclosure to study the 200 largest companies in Australia, this research has contributed new information to corporate social disclosure studies focused on non-financial performance disclosure, which should motivate companies to produce and disclose annual and sustainability reports that are more comprehensive and highly credible.

This thesis focuses on sustainability disclosure, sustainability performance, and sustainability committee. Analysing a sample of Australian firms, the thesis found that good performers disclose more information and communicate in optimistic, certain, and clear terms; they also present their information in a more readable way; the experience of sustainability disclosure improves the performance, and sustainability committee also contributes to the performance. The findings should of interest to investors, directors, managers, and regulators in Australia.

Given that Sweden is one of the most sustainable countries in the world (RobecoSAM, 2018), with a big number of its companies as active participants in CSR, we investigate the impact that these CSR activities could have on CFP with a focus on the Financial sector, using in 26 listed Financial Institutions. As we will find out from the existing literature, the CSR-CFP relationship is neither strictly negative nor positive. If it is positive, then the firm will allocate more resources to CSR to achieve better financial performance, and the firm may fore-go or approach CSR initiatives with caution if they affect CFP negatively. Past researchers have studied this relationship before and found that the reason why financial institutions get involved in socially responsible activities is to gain public trust and justification usually after a public financial scandal. So, we explore this further expecting that if it is indeed a matter of fact that these institutions gain the justification from the public that they so desire when they choose to get involved in socially responsible activities, then it should be that the public trust and justification would translate into improved financial performance. Therefore, the research question that we seek to answer is “Does Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) have an Impact on Corporate Financial Performance (CFP) in the Listed Swedish Financial Institutions” We examined the relationship between CSR and CFP using 26 Swedish financial institutions that are listed on Nasdaq Nordic stock exchange market (Stockholm) for the period between 2015 and 2019. The Fixed Effects Model regression analysis for panel data was used to test this relationship and we found that when Swedish financial institutions get involved in CSR, their financial performance is neither worsened or improved because of the insignificant ESG coefficients that we found.  Swedish financial institutions' engagement in socially responsible activities does not guarantee an impact on their financial performance.

One of the main aims of the underlying research is to respond to continuous calls for introducing and measuring a sound economic definition for best practice disclosure quality (e.g. Beyer et al., 2010) that is derived from a reliable guidance framework (Botosan, 2004) using an innovative natural language processing technique (Berger, 2011). It also aims to examine the impact of corporate governance on best practice disclosure quality. Finally, it aims to examine the joint effect of both best practice disclosure quality and corporate governance on firm value. The thesis contributes to disclosure studies in three principal ways. First, it introduces a new measure for best practice disclosure quality. Further tests show that the proposed measure is reliable and valid. A novel feature of this measure is that it captures all qualitative dimensions of information issued by the Accounting Standards Board, 2006 (ASB) Operating and Financial Review (OFR) Reporting Statement. Second, it uses machine-readable OFR statements for financial years ending in 2006-2009, and develops a language processing technique through constructing five keyword lists. Third, it examines the extent to which disclosure quantity provides a proper proxy for disclosure quality. The analysis shows that disclosure quantity is not a good proxy for disclosure quality. Accordingly, results derived, using quantity as a proxy for quality, are questionable. Results of the association between disclosure quality and corporate governance mechanisms suggest that the most effective governance mechanisms in improving disclosure quality are leadership structure, audit committee meeting frequency, and audit firm size. Using a wide set of corporate governance mechanisms, the study also contributes to three research strands and explains the inconclusive results in relation to the association between disclosure quality, corporate governance mechanisms and firm value. It provides empirical evidence as to which governance mechanisms promote the quality of voluntarily disclosed information in large UK firms. Additionally, it provides empirical evidence as to the joint effect of best practice disclosure quality, corporate governance mechanisms on firm value in the UK. Results also show that best practice disclosure quality enjoys a substitutive relationship with two corporate governance mechanisms (audit committee independence and audit committee size) and a complementary association with board independence in relation to firm value. The study has various research and policy implications. It suggests new research avenues for re-examining disclosure relationships, especially research areas that do not have persuasive conclusions such as the economic consequences of disclosure quality. Such research may inform both regulators and managers as to the costs and benefits of disclosure quality to both firms and stakeholders. It also provides feedback on the current disclosure practices by firms so that policy-makers can modify reporting frameworks/guidance accordingly.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is one important response to the increasing amounts of criticism levelled at corporations. A number of studies have focused on CSR in a range of industries; however, some contentious industries, e.g. the gambling industry, remain unexplored. Mobilizing CSR in a novel setting not only enhances the knowledge of CSR and gambling, but also provides an overview of this industry itself. This thesis attempts to investigate three questions: to what extent does the gambling industry disclose CSR-related data, how is CSR understood in this industry and why does the gambling industry engage in CSR? This thesis provides a general overview of the international gambling industry and an in-depth investigation of Macao's gambling industry. The research design of the thesis employs mixed methods: content analysis and semi-structured interviews. The principal research is based on 49 interviews. This thesis advances three main arguments. First, it will be argued that there are relatively low volumes of Corporate Social Disclosure (CSD) and Responsible Gambling (RG) disclosure in the international gambling industry, which can be viewed as a legitimising strategy. Second, in Macao's gambling industry, it is argued that organisations in this industry tend to place a greater emphasis on positive social impacts, while obscuring such negative impacts as gambling addiction and health-related issues. Third, this thesis holds that organisations in Macao's gambling industry engage symbolically, rather than substantively, with CSR and RG in order to manage stakeholders' perceptions in an attempt to gain different sources of legitimacy and in turn to enhance its economic interests. In conclusion, the gambling industry does not entirely conform to the institutional environment, which poses a challenge to the organisational legitimacy literature. This thesis introduces a necessary caution into the discussions about the extent of CSD, CSR, and RG in this industry more generally.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been attracting attention, especially in the context of the power and chemical industries in China, which are known to be heavy environmental polluters and raise significant concerns for the Chinese government and the international community. However, the impact of internal control and the CEO’s political connections on CSR disclosure are under-researched in the previous literature. This study investigates the relationship between internal control, corporate governance attributes, the CEO’s political connections and corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure in China’s power and chemical industries. The companies in the sample are selected from the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE) and the Shenzhen Stock Exchange (SZSE) in China. The main reason for selecting the power and chemical industries is that they are known as heavy environmental polluters in China. This study uses the Dibo Internal Control Index from Shenzhen Dibo Enterprise Risk Management Technology Co. Ltd. to measure the level of internal control. This study also collects available CSR and annual reports to measure CSR disclosure. Finally, this study selects 265 companies from China’s power and chemical industries with 892 company-year observations from 2013–2016. Based on multiple theories (institutional theory, legitimacy theory and stakeholder theory), a model is designed to examine the impact of internal control, corporate governance and the CEO’s political connections on CSR disclosure practices. The results suggest a significant and positive relationship between internal control and CSR disclosure. It is also found that corporate governance attributes, such as state ownership, board independence and existence of an audit committee, have a significant positive impact on CSR disclosure. However, no significant relationship is found between the CEO’s political connections and CSR disclosure in the context of China’s power and chemical industries. This study also finds that company size, the company’s industry and the company’s location significantly impact on the extent of CSR disclosure. Overall, the results suggest that internal control and sound corporate governance play a significant role in CSR disclosure in heavily polluting companies in China. The study has two significant distinguishing features from other research. Firstly, two variables, namely, internal control and the CEO’s political connections, are underresearched in the previous literature have been included in this study, providing insights for CSR research. Secondly, this study investigates CSR disclosure in the context of the power and chemical industries in China, which are known to be heavy environmental polluters. This study also provides empirical support to institutional, legitimacy and stakeholder theories. For example, the study’s findings imply that regulations have a significant impact on CSR in China’s power and chemical industries which supports institutional theory. Similarly, in line with legitimacy theory and stakeholder theory, China’s power and chemical companies implement CSR to survive, to avoid legitimacy threats and to meet the expectations of different stakeholders. The study’s findings provide useful information to regulators of China’s heavily polluting industries. Firstly, the positive impact of internal control on CSR disclosure provides theoretical support for regulatory policy on internal control; thus, Chinese regulators could enhance CSR disclosure by improving internal control. Secondly, policy makers and regulators can improve CSR disclosure by encouraging improvements in corporate governance due to the positive relationship between corporate governance and CSR disclosure. Thirdly, the non-significant relationship between the CEO’s political connections and CSR disclosure supports regulatory policies on heavily polluting industries, as China's regulation of these industries has moved from relying on local governments to reliance on laws, supervision and information disclosure which avoids adverse political impacts. Finally, this study has practical implications for investors and managers. Investors should pay attention on internal control, the corporate governance structure and CSR disclosure when investing in China’s power and chemical companies. Moreover, investors and managers can improve CSR disclosure by improving internal control and optimising the corporate governance structure, thereby improving the company’s legitimacy and viability.

碩士
國立臺北大學
會計學系
99
Recently, corporate social responsibility has been widely discussed and attention in the world. In addition to practice corporate social responsibility, preparation and issue of corporate social responsibility report has become an international trends. Purpose of this research is to analyze the profile of corporate social responsibility disclosure in Taiwan and find out affecting factors of corporate social responsibility disclosure. Empirical studies have shown that CSR disclosure activism varies across companies, industries, and time.Different theories about corporate social responsibility was also to expose the different views, such as the legitimacy theory, stakeholder theory or agency theory. Analysis of this study that, overall, our businesses to voluntarily disclose information about corporate social responsibility, the proportion is still low (35%). Our enterprises to disclosure the whole content about corporate social responsibility is still relatively small, and the establishment of an independent report of the percentage of enterprises is inadequacies (21%). Using GRI dimensions of performance analysises the disclosure of our corporate social responsibility, environmental dimensions of information disclosure is the highest level (84%). Empirical results of this study show the factors of corporate social responsibility disclosure include firm size, environmentally sensitive industries, corporate profitability and corporate leverage. Firm size, profitability, environmentally sensitive industries is a significant positive correlation with corporate social responsibility disclosure, while the level of corporate leverage and corporate social responsibility as a significant negative association.

碩士
國立臺北大學
會計學系
99
In recent years, corporate social responsibility has been widely discussed .Enterprises in addition to practice corporate social responsibility, preparation and issue of corporate social responsibility report has became an international business trends. And those times with the evolution of corporate governance theory, today's corporate governance is not just to shareholders, should guarantee the rights of persons are interested, this point coincides with the concept of corporate social responsibility. In the past, most empirical research focuses on the relationship between corporate social responsibility and financial performance, or just consider the corporate governance and financial performance , research between these three concepts there is still much room for improvement, because the corporate social responsibility and corporate governance is inextricably linked, taking into account the two is necessary. This study intends to answer the following question related to the CSR disclosure: Will companies with stronger corporate governance be more willing to issue CSR? To help academics and practitioners understanding more about management voluntary disclosure behavior, but also provides capital market investors to conduct business as an important reference evaluation basis. Empirical results revealed positive relationship between independent directors and corporate social responsibility. Finally, the GRI (G3) and the exposing situation of Taiwanese companies are analyzed, hoping to bring a reference about social responsibility report for domestic enterprises.

Tese de Doutoramento em Ciências Empresariais – Ramo de Conhecimento Contabilidade
This thesis explores two subjects: corporate social responsibility (CSR) and social responsibility disclosure (SRD). Its primary aim is to extend knowledge of SRD in Portugal. A multi-theoretical framework for the analysis of SRD, which combines resource-based perspectives (RBP) and social and political theories, is developed. According to the theoretical framework adopted, the contribution which CSR and SRD may have to financial performance is nowadays primarily related to qualitative factors, such as employee morale or corporate reputation. This investigation of SRD in Portugal analyses the nature of SRD in annual reports and on the Internet by a sample of companies listed on Euronext – Lisbon, and by a sample of Portuguese banks. It also examines the use of the Internet for SRD by the best companies to work for in Portugal (as assessed by the Great Place to Work Institute Portugal) compared to a group of matched companies. Using content analysis, SRD was classified in terms of theme (environment, human resources, products and customers and community involvement). Results suggest that the framework adopted may be useful in the analysis of SRD and should be further developed and used. At the theoretical level, this thesis develops a framework for analysis of social responsibility activities and disclosure by exploring the usefulness of RBP in understanding the motivations companies have to engage in these practices. At the empirical level, an important contribution is made to the knowledge of SRD practices in Portugal by providing new empirical data. In addition, this thesis addresses some shortcomings in SRD research. First, the limited emphasis on the impact of CSR related to human resources and the possible effects which SRD may have on such impact. Second, the scantiness of studies on social responsibility and disclosure practices of companies belonging to sectors with little environmental impact, such as banking and finance. Another aspect which this thesis addresses pertains to the analysis of other disclosure media besides annual reports, in particular the Internet. By analysing both these two media this thesis contributes to the scarce literature analysing more than one medium of SRD.
Esta tese trata os temas da responsabilidade social das empresas (RSE) e da divulgação de informação sobre responsabilidade social (DIRS). O seu principal objectivo é o de contribuir para o conhecimento da DIRS em Portugal. Nela desenvolvese um enquadramento teórico para a análise da RSE e da DIRS que combina resourcebased perspectives (RBP) e teorias sociais e políticas. De acordo com tal enquadramento, o efeito que a RSE e a DIRS têm sobre a competitividade e rendibilidade das empresas está principalmente associado a factores de natureza qualitativa, tais como a reputação das empresas e a motivação dos trabalhadores. Nesta tese, a investigação sobre a DIRS em Portugal faz-se através da análise da natureza da DIRS nos relatórios e contas anuais e na Internet por parte de uma amostra de empresas com acções cotadas na Euronext – Lisbon e de uma amostra de bancos portugueses. Também se analisa a utilização da Internet para DIRS por parte das melhores empresas para trabalhar em Portugal, por comparação com um conjunto de empresas de dimensão semelhante e pertencentes aos mesmos sectores de actividade (amostra emparelhada). Através de análise de conteúdo, a DIRS é classificada em temas (ambiente, recursos humanos, produtos e consumidores e envolvimento na comunidade). Os resultados obtidos sugerem que o enquadramento teórico adoptado poderá ser útil na análise da DIRS e deverá ser adicionalmente desenvolvido e utilizado. A nível teórico, esta tese contribui para o desenvolvimento de um enquadramento teórico para análise da RSE e da DIRS, através da exploração da utilidade das RBP na compreensão das motivações subjacentes ao envolvimento das empresas em tais práticas. A nível empírico, contribui-se para o conhecimento da DIRS em Portugal. Além disso, procura-se colmatar algumas lacunas existentes na investigação sobre DIRS: em primeiro lugar, ao nível da análise do impacto da RSE relacionado com os recursos humanos e os possíveis efeitos que a DIRS poderá ter sobre tal impacto; em segundo lugar, ao nível da RSE e DIRS de empresas de sectores com reduzido impacto ambiental, como o sector bancário. Procura-se também contribuir para a análise da utilização de outros meios de divulgação de informação para além dos relatórios e contas anuais, designadamente a Internet. Através da análise destes dois meios, contribui-se para a escassa literatura que analisa mais do que um meio de DIRS.

碩士
長庚大學
商管專業學院
97
The issue of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has been gaining greater attention in recent years and it appears that the way companies’ manifest behaviors in social responsibility are not always the same. Through analyzing information of 30 communication technology companies that have listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange , we have tried to prove the validity of two hypotheses. First, whether a company owning a brand or not would make companies behave differently in CSR especially in customer related category. Second, as two companies locate in different industry segment, their behavior in CSR would not be the same. The result suggests that whether a company has a brand or not does affect companies’ behavior in social responsibility; not only in the customer related field but also in the community related field. In addition, the social responsibility performance of a company is affected by the industrial segment it is located in. Laptop computer makers tend to perform their CSR in a wider range of categories than telecommunication device makers.

碩士
東海大學
財務金融學系
103
Recently, the corporate social responsibility (CSR) plays an important role in the industry, government and academia. It is not only useful in corporate image, but also an important factor in firm value and the value of brands. This paper examines whether the investors prefer the firm which has higher corporate social responsibility in the basis of Stakeholder Theory and Efficient Market Theory. More specifically, to measure corporate social responsibility, I quantify the score of “Corporate Citizenship Awards TOP50” in the CommonWealth Magazine, and choose liquidity measures, including the bid-ask spread, stock trading volume, and adjusted Amihud liquidity ratio to capture investors' behavior. The results suggest that disclosure of the information about CSR has an effect on the liquidity. However the relation between the change of the awards ranking and the liquidity is insignificant. On the other hand, firms awarded, compared with firms not awarded, seem to have more preference from investors. Overall I find that the CSR may not be a burden, but may improve the corporate image and consequently attract more investors to trade firms with high CSR.

碩士
國立臺灣大學
財務金融學研究所
107
This study investigates whether corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure is related to stock price crash risk. Crash risk captures the information asymmetry between firms and investors, and is important for both existing and potential shareholders. If firms with integrity share more information with the general public through CSR disclosure, they shall have a lower crash risk. On the other hand, if managers use CSR disclosure simply for advertising and greenwashing, more CSR disclosure shall have no significant effect or be associated with higher crash risk. The finding here supports the mitigating effect of CSR disclosure on crash risk. I find that CSR disclosure is negatively related with crash risk one year later. Furthermore, I find the effect more prominent when firms have more analyst following, less effective corporate governance or higher financial reporting opacity. These are consistent with the hypotheses that analysts play a vital role in interpreting CSR information, firms with weaker primary monitoring mechanism shall enjoy more from the outside monitoring, and that nonfinancial information is complementary to financial reports. Upon all above, corporate governance disclosure is viewed to be the most crucial, among the three conventional categories of environmental, social and corporate governance.

Tese de Doutoramento em Contabilidade
Academic accounting research on Corporate Social Responsibility business aspects is seen as a growing and dynamic worldwide theme. In Portugal, despite being a topic that has attracted the attention of several authors, it is still little explored. This doctoral thesis is based on the exploration of the voluntary corporate social responsibility disclosure practices in a Portuguese context. Through the lens of the stakeholder theory, the aim is to contribute to three research gaps in the corporate social responsibility literature. First we extend the limited volume of international literature that explores the interaction between economic recession times and corporate social responsibility disclosure practices. Portugal was one of the countries most affected by the global financial crisis and offers a good opportunity to understand how the level of corporate social responsibility disclosure differs in times of crisis. The empirical results have revealed that during a severe financial crisis corporate social responsibility disclosure was not reduced consequentially. Indeed, to address stakeholders’ concerns some CSR issues, such community engagement and corruption prevention, were most reported. Additionally, the research reveals that in Portugal corporate social responsibility disclosure is more extensive in industries closer the consumer. A second area of the literature that remains unresolved is the relationship between corporate social responsibility and corporate governance. Whereas CSR involvement and associated disclosures stem from board decisions we explore how Portuguese Corporate Governance characteristics influence corporate social responsibility disclosure. We find that in a country characterized by high ownership concentration, companies with large boards and chief executive officer duality are associated with higher levels of corporate social responsibility disclosure. Lastly, there is a lack of understanding concerning the involvement of small companies in corporate social responsibility. Based on previous studies we compare the corporate social responsibility disclosure practices of large and small companies to understand if fundamental company’s characteristics influence corporate social responsibility disclosure practices on Portuguese companies. Using an innovative index that identifies the needs of common stakeholders in small and medium enterprises and large companies, the empirical findings suggest that the corporate social responsibility disclosure practices of small and medium enterprises and large companies are not significantly different. However, we found size, industrial affiliation and report assurance can be relevant for explain different business approaches to corporate social responsibility engagement and disclosure.
A investigação académica na área científica da contabilidade relacionada com os aspectos empresariais da Responsabilidade Social é por todo o mundo considerada como uma linha de investigação dinâmica em franco crescimento. Em Portugal, apesar de ser um tema que tem despertado a atenção de diversos autores, é ainda pouco explorado. A presente tese de doutoramento baseia-se no relato voluntário da responsabilidade social das empresas Portuguesas e pretende, na perspectiva da teoria dos stakeholders, contribuir para o conhecimento em três linhas de investigação usualmente consideradas na literatura sobre responsabilidade social empresarial. Em primeiro lugar contribuímos para o desenvolvimento da literatura académica relacionada com o impacto das condições económicas nas práticas empresariais de relato da responsabilidade social. Portugal foi um dos países mais severamente atingidos pela crise financeira global, pelo que constitui uma excelente oportunidade para perceber o impacto da crise no relato da responsabilidade social empresarial. Os resultados empíricos revelam que durante a crise financeira o relato empresarial da responsabilidade social não foi substancialmente reduzido. Para responder às preocupações dos stakeholders alguns indicadores de responsabilidade social empresarial, tal como os aspectos relacionados com a comunidade e com a prevenção da corrupção, foram mais divulgados. Adicionalmente, a investigação revela que em Portugal a divulgação da responsabilidade social empresarial é mais extensiva em indústrias próximas do consumidor. Uma segunda área, ainda por resolver na investigação prévia, é a relação entre responsabilidade social empresarial e o governo das sociedades. Como o envolvimento das empresas em actividades relacionadas com a responsabilidade social, bem como a sua divulgação, são decisões que respeitam à gestão de topo das empresas, investigamos em que medida as características de governo corporativo das empresas portuguesas influenciam o relato da responsabilidade social empresarial. Os principais resultados permitem concluir que num país onde a estrutura de propriedade se caracteriza por elevada concentração, as empresas com conselhos de administração mais numerosos, bem como aquelas em que o presidente do conselho de administração é simultaneamente o responsável executivo, divulgam mais informação relacionada com a sua responsabilidade social empresarial. Por fim, para contribuir para o escasso conhecimento sobre as práticas de responsabilidade social empresarial em empresas de menor dimensão, comparamos empresas de diferentes dimensões para verificar a influência de características fundamentais na divulgação da responsabilidade social empresarial. Os resultados obtidos sugerem que as práticas de divulgação da responsabilidade social empresarial de empresas de diferente dimensão não se afastam significativamente. No entanto, o tamanho, tipo de indústria e a certificação dos relatórios pode ser relevante para explicar diferenças no envolvimento e relato da responsabilidade social empresarial.

碩士
國立東華大學
會計與財務碩士學位學程
102
The issue of corporate social responsibility has gained more and more attention from the public. While a firm is pursuing its profit, the outside stakeholders are paying attention to its image and non-operating activities. As a result, this research aims to examine whether banks and credit rating agencies take CSR reports issued by firms into consideration and make different decisions accordingly. This study selected a sample of firms (1992 to 2012) from the Compustant database. The results show that a firm with disclosing CSR reports has a higher chance to be evaluated by credit rating agencies and such firm gets a lower cost of debt. However, it gets poorer credit rating than the one with no disclosing CSR reports. In other words, banks and credit rating agencies’ decisions are influenced by whether a firm has issued CSR reports. While CSR reports can provide additional information, the banks and credit rating agencies displayed different opinion of them.

碩士
國立高雄應用科技大學
會計系
105
This study aims to examine the number of words disclosed in the 2015 Corporate Social Responsibility Report on four aspects of Corporate Governance, Corporate Commitment, Social Participation, and Environmental Protection in Food, Financial and Chemical Company in Taiwan and to explore its relevance and impact with the stock price. This study confirms that the Corporate Social Responsibility report priority to reveal corporate governance and corporate commitment. However, Corporate Governance showed significant negative correlation with stock prices, Corporate Commitment presented negative correlation but not significant with stock prices. Instead of Social Participation and Environmental Protection showed significant positive correlation with stock prices, but they both had low exposure degree in the report.

碩士
國立臺灣大學
會計學研究所
104
While most prior literature focuses on the relationship between financial information and readability, little research examines the readability of nonfinancial information which contains more textual contents. Therefore, this research investigates the relationship of mandatory corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure and its readability. First, we test whether the financial performance affects the readability of CSR report under the mandatory environment. Second, we also examine whether the readability of CSR reports is correlated with in-accordance framework and standards of assurance. We find that when a company’s performance is better, its readability of CSR report is better. This is consistent with Obfuscation Hypothesis (Subramanian 1993). We also find that the readability of CSR reports various with different in-accordance standards and different assurance standards. Readability of CSR reports is higher when the In Accordance-Comprehensive Standard or the AA1000 Assurance Standard is used. This thesis was wrote in Chinese.

碩士
國立臺灣大學
會計學研究所
104
The objective of this research is to investigate whether political costs impact the degree of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) disclosure. We use size, the ratio of a company’s sales market share, tax benefit, media visibility as the proxy variable of political costs. The sample includes Taiwanese listed companies in 2013. The empirical results show that companies with higher political costs tend to disclosure more CSR information.

碩士
輔仁大學
會計學系碩士班
104
The relationship between corporate social performance (CSP) and corporate financial performance (CFP) has been a hot topic in academic circles for a long time. However, the results of previous studies are inconsistent. This paper considers one of the reasons may be that many studies cannot make a distinction between corporate social performance and social responsibility disclosure, and then conclude with different answers when they examine the relationship of CSP and CFP. This paper aims to distinguish these two indicators and to find the relationship among corporate social performance, social responsibility disclosure and financial performance. Using 1,679 firm-year observations during 2011-2013 of China listed companies, the Ordinary least squares (OLS) regression results indicate that: 1) There is a positive relationship between corporate social performance and social responsibility disclosure, support the voluntary disclosure theory based on the signaling theory, 2) There is a positive relationship between corporate social performance and financial performance, support the stakeholder theory, and 3) There is no significant relationship between social responsibility disclosure and financial performance.

碩士
國立中興大學
企業管理學系所
99
"Corporate social responsibility" has been redefined corporate achievement and helped corporate development at 21st century. Stakeholder understands corporate earning condition through inspecting financial report. Similarly, Corporate social responsibility disclosure is a tool that helps corporate to announce corporate social responsibility activities and to communicate with stakeholders. According to the previous literature, the results was inconsistent between corporate social responsibility disclosure and corporate value. Besides, corporate value is measured by traditional accounting performance variables such as ROA、EPS. This study was viewing the stakeholder theory, resource dependence theory and private costs theory to discuss the trade-off between corporate social responsibility disclosure cost and revenue would affect corporate value. In this research, we used market-oriented performance index─ economic value added to measure corporate value. Institutions of the international society such as Global Reporting Initiative attempts to collate kinds of corporate social disclosure criterion, standard and authentication in order to establish a universal corporate social disclosure dimensions. However, different countries, industries, and stakeholders focus on different topics. We sought appropriate dimensions for Taiwan enterprises to measure corporate social responsibility disclosure condition and compared to other enterprise. At the same time, we used sample enterprises comparing to 2009《Global Views Magazine》CSR outstanding enterprises. We found out that these prize enterprises really disclose more content than sample average. In empirical research, we used Taiwan’s Electronic Industry as a sample. We used content analysis to collect Corporate social responsibility disclosure data from 2009 annual report; the required information of computing corporate value was collected form TEJ dataset. The results showed: (1) The main content of corporate social disclosure in electronics industry of listed company in Taiwan and future direction that they can improve.(2) The relationship between corporate social responsibility disclosure and corporate value were U-shaped curve. Finally, based on the empirical results, we proposed theoretical and managerial implications and suggestions for future research.

碩士
中原大學
會計研究所
106
This paper explores the relationship between mandatory disclosure of corporate social responsibility report and corporate tax burden. The study samples used in this research are collected from Taiwan listed and over-the-counter companies during the period 2010-2016. The empirical results show that some of the GAAP effective tax rates are negatively correlated with the enforcement of mandatory disclosure regulations, and more than half of the CASH effective tax rates are positively correlated with the enforcement of mandatory disclosure regulations. This study also tested the difference in the degree of corporate tax burden of the first forced disclosure of the Corporate Social Responsibility Report. The regression results showed that there is no significant correlation between first forced disclosure report and the effective tax rates.

碩士
中原大學
會計研究所
102
Due to many frauds were exposed recently, the public pays a greater number of attentions to corporate image and goodwill the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility has become one of major concerns in business administration. Therefore, no matter which scale of Corporations are, financing is always needed and crucial so that the relationship of cost of capital and profits is inseparable. In light of my viewpoint, whether the disclosure of Corporate Social Responsibility has a substantial impact on the business became a question worth exploring. Therefore, the correlation between Corporate Social Responsibility report and cost of capital will be the main task of this research. In this study, I take listed companies from 2007 to 2012 as research sample and take a pair of two pairing mode to select research sample and using Heckman's two-stage regression model to avoid endogeneity problems. In our opinion, no matter cost of equity capital or cost of debt capital, both of them are negative correlation with the disclosure of Corporate Social Responsibility. It means that when companies willing to disclosure the Corporate Social Responsibility report, they are more likely to decrease their cost of capital and this conclusion supports the hypothesis of this study.

碩士
中國文化大學
會計學系
103
In the recent years, a lot of scandal and fraud have occurred both in domestic and abroad. Therefore, the relevant issues of audit committee and information disclosure are more concerned by general public in Taiwan. Meanwhile, the recent food scandal happened in Taiwan also making corporate social responsibility more important and worthy to explore it. This research applies the databases of Market Observation Post System, CSR Sustainability Report and Taiwan Economic Journal (TEJ) as research samples.The major purpose is to examine the association among audit committee, corporate social responsibility and information disclosure. The resench results are not correlated between audit committee and performance corporate social responsibility. The relationship between corporate social responsibility and information disclosure is significant and correlated. This shows that the better function of corporate social responsibility will be helpful to improve information disclosure.

碩士
國立臺北大學
法律學系一般生組
106
Nowadays, people generally agree that corporations need to fulfill corporate social responsibility (CSR), and managers usually fuse CSR with managerial strategy. In fact, the controversy over adopting the shareholder primacy theory or the stakeholder theory has long been in dispute since the 20th century. In comparative law, for instance, some states in the U.S.A, constituency statutes allow directors consider stakeholders’ interest; in the U.K., section 172(1) of the Companies Act provides that directors would be most likely to promote the success of the company for the benefit of shareholders, and must give proper consideration to stakeholders; in Germany, “Mitbestimmungsrecht” (Co-determination right) authorizes the labors to elect supervisors to supervise the board of directors. All of these mechanisms are helpful to fulfill CSR. Even though, the way to fulfill CSR is still controversy. However, the disclosure of CSR related non-financial information became more important, as a method to promote and supervise the corporations to perform their CSR; besides it is a way to communicate with stakeholders. The European Directive 2014/95/EU extended the disclosure of public interest entities (PIEs) in the EU. They should prepare a non-financial statement containing information relating to at least environmental matters, social and employee-related matters, respect for human rights, anti-corruption and bribery matters. In R.O.C, legislators have ruled that a company listed on the stock exchange or traded on an OTC market shall disclose the state of the company's performance of social responsibilities. At the end of 2014, Financial Supervisory Commission required that specific industries shall prepare and file of Corporate Social Responsibility Reports. This study introduces the relevant theories and regulations about CSR from the perspective of comparative law. The non-financial disclosure focuses on the European Directive 2014/95/EU and selects the U.K. and Germany as the comparative states, to study their legislation and compare with the existing laws and regulations of R.O.C. Finally, this study make some suggestions to improve the legislation of R.O.C.

碩士
國立中正大學
會計與資訊科技研究所
106
This paper investigates the relationship between the FSC regulation of the CSR report disclosure and the short-term abnormal return. Further, this paper examines whether the CSR report disclosed by the listed companies will generate abnormal returns in the short-term or long-term horizon. This study uses the market model in the event study to compute abnormal returns. Also, this paper uses the Buy-and-Hold abnormal return and the Fama and French three-factor methods to accurately measure the long-term abnormal return reaction on the release of CSR report in the stock market and implements multivariate regressions to examine research hypotheses formulated in this study. The empirical results show that, there is a short-term negative impact on stock prices when the FSC requires those specific companies to disclose their CSR reports. Companies that have disclosed their CSR reports generate higher and more positive long-term abnormal returns than those undisclosed companies. Moreover, this study finds that the abnormal return is higher when the CSR report is disclosed after the FSC regulation. Finally, this paper examines whether the voluntary or mandatory disclosure of the CSR report has an impact on abnormal returns and the empirical evidence suggests no statistically significant between them.

碩士
國立臺北大學
金融與合作經營學系
105
Corporate social responsibility（CSR）in banking industry has become increasingly important as series of CSR scandal has been occurred over the past few years. Using a sample of Taiwanese Bank in 2014 and 2015 and controlling for bank size, profitability and dummy variables such as state-owned bank, family owned bank and subsidiary of financial holding company. we have conducted analysis of panel data and employed five different dimensions of CSR disclosure（i.e. total score, community, environment, employee and product）.First, we examine the association between corporate governance and CSR disclosure. We find that independent director is negatively related to total score and product dimension of CSR disclosure. director with finance experience is negatively related to environment score. However, director with accounting experience is positively associated with product dimension of CSR disclosure. This indicates that expertise of director is the internal corporate governance mechanisms for improving CSR disclosure. Second, we examine the association between degree of internationalization and CSR disclosure. Degree of internationalization has no relationship on CSR disclosure.

碩士
崑山科技大學
企業管理研究所
101
Companies will face in the 21st century economy for sustainable development patterns, enterprises in order to enhance their competitiveness, you must pay increasing attention to the social responsibility, therefore, the disclosure of corporate social responsibility is increasingly important. In this study, Taiwan 2006-2011 Listed (cabinet) company as the research object, using the Ohlson (1995), Wen-Ling Lin and Fuzhong Ren (2011) equity valuation model book value per share and earnings per share associated with the company's share price between the empirical analysis in corporate social responsibility, this study mainly based on the ROC Council for Sustainable Development to build "Corporate Environmental Performance and Sustainable Development Report Database" provides information, also refer to the "Best Corporate Citizenship Award", "corporate vision magazine Social Award "and the Taiwan Institute for Sustainable Energy Foundation" Taiwan Sustainability Reporting Award "in the list of winning companies, as revealed in this study corporate social responsibility (CSR) enterprises sample data. In its annual report information disclosure and environmental information disclosure, according to the 8th Annual Information Disclosure Ranking 50 indicators (refer Ouyang Hao and Jiang Shengxiong, 2012) and 24 environmental information disclosure index (reference Ouyang Hao and Chen Jiancheng, 2012), the use of content Analysis was rated. One of the aims of this study was to investigate whether the company has disclosed corporate social responsibility (DUM_CSR) the impact of the company's equity value Why? Purpose of the two in the verification environment, information disclosure and annual information disclosure on the impact of the equity value of the company why? Purposes, three in verify "whether disclosure of corporate social responsibility (DUM_ CSR) on the" book value per share and the Company's equity value "," earnings per share equity value of the company "is the relationship between whether positive or negative significant moderating effect, our each industry listed companies disclose CSR, can enhance the company's net earnings per share and per share relative value relevance, whether there is a correlation between the tradeoff relationship? Purpose four in verify "whether disclosure of corporate social responsibility (DUM_CSR)" vs. "environmental information disclosure and corporate equity value", "annual information disclosure and corporate equity value" if there is the relationship between the significant positive or negative Festival effect? The empirical results show that: whether the Corporate Social Responsibility Award for the company's value and earnings per share are significant positive influence, book value per share and environmental information disclosure on firm value are not significant positive effect, significant negative annual information disclosure to affect the value of the company; in getting Corporate Social Responsibility Award for the study variables and the relationship between firm value adjustment effect, whether the Corporate Social Responsibility Award remarkable book value per share and the weakening of the correlation between firm value and whether the Corporate Social Responsibility Award significantly enhanced earnings per share and the correlation between the value of the company, the results of this study again confirms issued earnings per share and book value per share there is a correlation between alternative; "whether the Corporate Social Responsibility Award" significant enhancements "Environmental information disclosure and corporate value positive correlation between" and "whether the Corporate Social Responsibility Award" significant improvement "Annual Report Information Disclosure and Corporate negative relationship between the value of." Finally, the main contribution of this study: First, confirm whether the Corporate Social Responsibility Award equity value of the company's positive relevance, and Wen-Ling Lin and Fuzhong Ren (2011) empirical results, whether the Corporate Social Responsibility Award equity value of the company no significant negative impact to different; secondly, whether the Corporate Social Responsibility Award significant weakening book value per share and the correlation between the value of the company, and to enhance earnings per share and the correlation between the value of the company, the results of this study found reaffirmation of earnings per share and book value per share there is a correlation between alternative; Third, "whether the Corporate Social Responsibility Award" significant increase "Environmental information disclosure and corporate value positive correlation between"; fourth, "whether Get Corporate Social Responsibility Award "significant improvement" Annual Report Information Disclosure score between firm value and the negative relationship. " Among them, the latter two results of this study and previous studies biggest differences is the most important contribution of this study.

碩士
崑山科技大學
企業管理研究所
102
Companies will face economypatternsof sustainable developmentin21st century, Enterprises in order to enhance their competitiveness, they must pay increasing attention to the social responsibility, therefore, the disclosure of corporate social responsibility is increasingly important. In this study, we adopted Taiwan Listed (Cabinet) companies as our research samples from 2006 to 2012. The empirical results show that both “whether the company obtains Corporate Social Responsibility Award”and“earnings per share” have significantly positive impact on corporate performance, while both “book value per share” and “environmental information disclosure”havesignificantlynegativeimpact on corporate per forme, but only the former reachs significant level. The moderating effect of “whether the company obtains Corporate Social Responsibility Award” on the relationship between “research variables and corporate performance”, our empirical results find that “whether the company obtaninsthe Corporate Social Responsibility Award” remarkable weaken of the negative association between “book value per share and corporate performance”, while“whether the company obtanins the the Corporate Social Responsibility Award” remarkable weaken of the positive association between “earnings per share and corporate performance”.