Linking Corporate Social Responsibility Reporting With the UN Sustainable Development Goals

The approval of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) within the 2030 United Nations Agenda represents a historic mark for sustainable development, allowing to companies to seek solutions that add value and solve the greatest global challenges, by linking organizational strategies and global priorities. Thus, listed companies will need to be able to assess their impact on the SDGs and review their strategies accordingly. Therefore, reporting can play a key role by informing the progress of listed companies in alignment with the SDGs. This article aims to analyse how Portuguese listed company reporting includes their contributions toward the SDGs. The study methodology is based on content analysis of the sustainability reports (SR) and non-financial statements (NFS) published in 2017, seeking to characterize the Portuguese listed companies that are concerned with SDG-related disclosure. The results indicate that from a sample of 46 listed companies, only 12 published SR or NFS, but 9 companies made the alignment with the UN goals.

Corporate Social Responsibility Reporting in the Casino Industry: A Content Analysis

The purpose of this study is to provide preliminary exploration of how corporate social responsibility issues are currently reported and communicated by US major casino companies. Empirical evidence is drawn from standalone CSR reports and websites of the 30 largest casino companies in the US, which is explored through content analysis methodology. This paper finds that there are substantial variations in the reporting and communication of CSR issues by casino companies. While casino companies mainly rely on websites to communicate CSR issues, 23% of the sample companies use standalone CSR reports. Whereas websites tend to provide relatively limited information about CSR activities, standalone CSR reports have a tendency to cover comprehensive CSR themes in a detailed manner. In addition, the content analysis based on website reveals that while most casino companies tend to be passive about responsible gaming, some are trying to behave more actively and responsibly about this issue.

The Relationship between Corporate Social Responsibility Reporting and Firm Performance and the Moderating Role of Firm Life Cycle Stages: Evidence from China

This study aims to investigate the relationship of firm performance and corporate social responsibility reporting and the moderating role of a firm’s life cycle stages in Chinese listed companies. We used the sample of all A-share listed firms on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges for the period 2010 to 2020. The authors used pooled ordinary least squares (OLS) regression as a baseline methodology. Our regression results show that positive Corporate social responsibility (CSR) activity significantly reduces the performance of the firm. In addition, the negative link between positive Corporate social responsibility and a firm’s performance is more pronounced for firms in mature life cycle stages. Our results are robust to alternative proxy measures of ROA for firm performance, corporate social responsibility reporting, and life cycle stages. To control the possible problem of endogeneity, we use a one-year lag and 2SLS least squares regression. We find that firm performance has a statistically significant influence on CSR reporting. Moreover, we see that firms with high performance are more likely to report CSR activities than low-performance firms. Additionally, six out of ten control variables (Independent Director, Board Shares, State Owned Enterprise, Board Meeting, Chief executive officer Duality, and Firm Growth) have positive influences on CSR reporting. These findings hold for a set of robustness tests. Our results have implications for the development of CSR reporting in developing countries such as China. Our research suggests that, in China, firms with better financial performance undertake more CSR reporting. This paper contributes to the existing literature by investigating the effect of firm performance on CSR reporting and the moderating role of a firm’s life cycle stages in Chinese listed companies. Additionally, this paper enriches the current literature on CSR reporting and highlights the importance of a firm’s financial performance for better environmental performance and reporting.

Convergence or Disparity? A Cross-Country Analysis of Corporate Social Responsibility Reporting for Banking Industry in Nordic Countries and China

This research investigates the corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting for banking industry in Nordic countries and China, and compares the convergence and disparity of disclosed CSR information across these two regimes. The study encompasses a sample of eight largest commercial banks by total assets in Nordic countries and China over a 5-year period of 2013–2017. We employ a disclosure index approach to assess the contents of CSR reporting based on eight categories and a total of 60 CSR indicators. The results indicate that Nordic banks have a higher overall disclosure level of CSR information than Chinese banks, and significantly ahead of their counterparts with respect to the international commitment, and a wider coverage of addressing stakeholders’ needs. In contrast, CSR reporting in Chinese banks put greater emphasis on national public policy and philanthropic activities. Nevertheless, all sample countries share a convergence on underlining the importance of complying with applicable laws and regulations. The study findings assert that the convergence and disparity of CSR reporting across countries is relevant to pre-existing socio-political institutions the firms can rely on. This research probes into an unexplored research territory by comparing the CSR reporting between banks from a so-called Nordic business-society model and a Confucian-tradition model. Hence, it entails some important policy prescriptions for the concerned administrators and corporate practitioners in the sample countries.

Digital Corporate Social Responsibility Reporting in The Water Industry

Companies in the water industry present to their shareholders their digital corporate social responsibility agendas and their social and environmental commitments on their websites. The purpose of this research is to assess the digital corporate social responsibility of Portuguese companies in the water industry. This research makes theoretical and practical contributions to the existing literature by examining the corporate social responsibility disclosure in a specific type of industry that is rarely studied and is in one of the smallest Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries, thereby expanding previous research in this field. The research also examines factors that affect the digital status of the online disclosure. The authors empirically analyse the corporate social responsibility information published on the websites of the Portuguese companies operating in the bottled water industry. The data was collected based on the Global Reporting Initiative standards which detail the level of disclosure in this industry and highlight areas of underreporting. The results reveal the variables companies’ size, number of employees and turnover influence the level of disclosure of Portuguese companies in water industry.