Corporate Responsibility Reports Research: Evidence From U.K. Corporations

• Main Authors: Lin, Hsiao-Su, 林筱素
• Other Authors: Cheng, Chia-Ling
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2010
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/47671392432251555789

碩士 === 輔仁大學 === 會計學系碩士班 === 98 === The purpose of this study is twofold. First, the study develops a performance indicator based on Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) to measure the level of disclosure in corporate responsibility reports. The sample comprised the 100 largest U.K. firms (FTSE100) in eight industries from 2007 to 2008. The GRI is a widely acknowledged guideline for reporting the economic, environmental and social aspects of a firm’s activities. A disclosure-scoring technique is employed to analyze the scope of the reports and disclosure levels among different industries. The findings indicate that firms in the environmental sensitive industries tend to provide higher level disclosure. In addition, the results suggest that firms tend to disclose more environmental information and pay less attention to the economic information. The environmental indicators are about issues such as air emissions, energy consumption, waste and the plan reducing the impact of environment. The social indicators are about issues such as labor, health and safety. The second purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and financial performance. Under the slack resource theory, better financial position can provide a cushion that allows firms to initiate strategy with respect to CSR. In this study, the performance of CSR is determined by adopting the content analysis score, and two accounting based measures are used to determine firm profitability. The findings indicate that the levels of CSR have positive association with financial performance, which is supported for the slack resource theory.