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The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of social movements engendered by the Arab Spring crisis on the relationship between corporate social responsibility disclosure (CSRD) and corporate governance attributes, particularly board composition, considering the importance of governance after the Arab Spring event.

Content analysis was used to examine the extent and nature of CSRD in annual reports of Jordanian companies listed on the Amman Stock Exchange covering the period 2009–2016. A dynamic regression model using panel data is then undertaken for a sample of 114 listed companies over the period to analyse the potential impact of board composition on the level of CSRD.

The results reveal that there was a significant increase in the level of CSRD post-the Arab Spring crisis; and that governance appears to be a key driver. Specifically, board age, directors educated in business and/or accounting-related fields and foreign members are found to have a significant positive relationship with CSRD.

Looking at the Arab region pre- and after the Arab Spring helps to complete the global picture of how company governance can lead to improved CSR performance. Specifically, this region has been behind in developing rules and codes that include CSR. The results show that having a diverse board, with directors with expertise specific to the context, increases the effectiveness of stakeholder management through CSRD. The results, therefore, offer valuable insights for companies, policymakers and for the development of regulations.

Although the phenomenon of the corporate social responsibility disclosure (CSRD) has derived the interest of several scholars, in recent years, the comparative studies between Islamic banks (IBs) regarding CSRD quantity versus quality have not been the subject matter of studies till now. In this perspective, this chapter aims to investigate the importance given by IBs to the quality and quantity disclosure of CSR. Moreover, it seeks to explore the impact of CSRD quality and quantity on the IBs' financial performance (FP). To meet these objectives, we used a sample of 59 IBs from 2011 to 2016 in the Arab world and non-Arab world. Then, by adopting the content analysis approach, the authors constructed two CSRD indexes (quality and quantity). The empirical results indicated that IBs give more importance to the qualitative disclosure than the quantitative. Our findings will be very helpful for the policymakers and the managers of IBs because maintaining a good CSRD policy increases the capacity of IBs to deal with possible reputational events, thus protecting their profits and financial results. As far as the comparison between the Arabian and non-Arabian IBs, based on financial reports and Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions (AAOIFI) governance standard N°7 is concerned, our study is among the first studies that provides two new CSRD indexes (quantity and quality).

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Implementation and Disclosure in the Banking Sector: the case of banks with Islamic identity in Syria. This study aims to explore Corporate Social Responsibility Disclosure (CSRD) in Syrian banks which have an Islamic identity, investigating their motivations when implementing and disclosing CSR and the challenges banks have faced. This study employed content analysis to extract knowledge from 33 annual reports published by three banks which have Islamic identity in Syria over the period 2008–2020. Semi-structured interviews were then conducted with five participants who are aware of CSRD policy in the banks in the sample, in order to gain a fuller understanding of their motivations in relation to CSR and any challenges they faced. This article draws on the overlap between Stakeholder and Legitimacy theories in order to explain the motivations of the banks in question. The study found that banks which have an Islamic identity increased their levels of CSR implementation during the conflict crisis but were not publishing details on these activities because of a concern regarding the Islamic modesty around charitable actions and to avoid upsetting the sensibility of beneficiaries. Interviewees commented that in the time of conflict crisis, many Syrians needed relief and support. Because of this, banks in our research sample decided to take responsibility to lessen the negative impact of the conflict crisis on the Syrian community. In addition, the analysis revealed that banks engaged with Environment and Human Right issues after 2013 because they wanted to fulfil the requirements of their national partners.

This paper examines the relationship between the extent and quality of the four dimensions of corporate social responsibility disclosure (CSRD) namely community, environment, workplace and marketplace with the long-run share price performance of Malaysian initial public offering (IPO) companies.

This study utilised secondary data by the content analysis of the annual reports and Datastream of 115 IPOs listed from 2007 to 2015 in Malaysia. The IPO’s performance was determined by calculating the return measures under the equally weighted and value-weighted schemes of the mean abnormal returns and buy-and-hold abnormal returns covering the three years post-listing using the event-time approach.

The findings demonstrate that Malaysian IPOs experience substantial overperformance and underperformance when both the IPO performance measures are benchmarked against the matched companies and market. The results indicated that the extent and quality of the community and environment CSRD dimensions are positively and significantly correlated to the IPO’s performance. On the other hand, the extent and quality of the workplace and marketplace CSRD dimensions are negatively and significantly correlated to the IPO performance.

Malaysian regulators could benefit from these findings in their endeavour to carry out a reform process on CSRD to improve its quality. The results of this study are important to investors, regulators, non-government organisations, communities and policymakers. They also enhance the understanding of companies about the importance of disclosing greater CSR information to improve their performance and profitability.

To the researchers' best knowledge, this study provides new insights into the association between CSRD and the performance of Malaysian IPO companies, which is considered important.

This paper aims to explore the extent of corporate social responsibility disclosure (hereafter CSRD) in Jordan and also examine whether ownership structure, board of directors and audit committee characteristics influence CSRD.

The extent of CSRD is measured by constructing a CSRD index for industrial firms listed on the Amman Stock Exchange from 2016 to 2021. Panel regression analysis is used to examine the potential effect of ownership structure, board of directors and audit committee on the level of CSRD.

This study provides empirical evidence that diverse groups of shareholders have different effects on CSR engagement, and board characteristics (board size, board independence and gender diversity) play a vital role in increasing voluntary disclosure, including CSR information. There is no evidence to support that CSRD is influenced by audit committee characteristics.

This study recommends that corporate regulators and policymakers can improve CSRD practices by expanding the scope of existing disclosure requirements related to CSR and developing a structured CSRD index to measure the degree of CSRD practices for comparative purposes. Encourage firms to actively participate in social responsibility programs by granting tax incentives and government facilities to firms with the best CSR reports. Policymakers should introduce initiatives that support female’s representation on board. Finally, firms should restructure their boards by increasing board size and the percentage of independent directors to enhance their effectiveness to support CSRD.

This paper contributes further insights into the literature on CSRD practices and disclosure by analyzing data from developing market contexts.

To investigate the impact of board characteristics (board gender diversity, board chair age, board subcommittees, board meetings, board skill, board size and board independence) on corporate social responsibility disclosures (CSRD) of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in Kenya during the period 2015–2018.

The study employed fixed-effects balanced panel data to examine the impact of board characteristics on CSRD. The analysis is repeated using two regression estimators (robust least square and random effects) and the four CSRD subcomponents to evaluate the robustness of the main analysis.

The results established that board gender diversity, board chair age and board subcommittees had significant negative effects on CSRD. The impact of the remaining board characteristics was found to be insignificant.

The study was limited to the disclosures included in the annual reports, which means that information disclosed in other media, like websites, was not considered. The second limitation concerns mediating and moderator variables that were not considered.

There is a need for a stricter corporate governance implementation mechanism, as opposed to the “comply or explain” principle, since results suggest that most of the board characteristics do not appear to be impactful. Additionally, the low level of reported CSRD calls for the establishment of Corporate Social Responsibility or related committees.

The evidence suggests that SOEs are reluctant to report on issues such as ethics, health and safety initiatives, environment and social investments.

The paper extends the literature on the impact of board characteristics on CSRD in unlisted non-commercial SOEs in a developing country context.

This study examines the bi-directional relationship between corporate social responsibility disclosure (CSRD) and ownership structure through a dynamic empirical framework in an emerging economy context.

Data over 10 years are used to investigate the response of disclosure to ownership structure variables and vice versa. Dynamic bi-directional relationships are hypothesised and empirically investigated using a panel vector autoregressive (PVAR) model. The ownership structure variables used are government ownership, block ownership and director ownership, while CSRD is constructed as a score through content analysis.

A bi-directional negative relationship between CSRD and government ownership is found, revealing a preference for the state to invest in companies with opaque disclosure. CSRD is found to respond negatively to block ownership, albeit weakly. Results also show that directors prefer to own shares in the company they manage when there are low levels of CSRD.

The current empirical set-up of using a small emerging economy may not carry to the context of larger emerging economies where the institutional context may differ. Thus, future research could use this dynamic empirical approach to re-examine the questions raised in this paper using data from other emerging economies. The use of a longer time series makes it feasible to explore further analysis what was not possible in this study, such as an impulse response analysis examining the reaction of the variables of interest, CSRD and ownership variables for a specific time horizon to particular changes or shocks associated with one of the endogenous variables in the PVAR.

A major implication is that expecting disclosure practices to improve due to government and director initiatives would be less likely in emerging economies. State and director shareholders prefer to invest in opaque companies because they may purposely choose to keep the minimum disclosure levels. The paper calls for a transparent process and ethical guidelines to guide government investment in firms.

The study investigates the bi-directional relationship between ownership structure and CSRD in contrast to the existing literature's presupposed one-way relationship between these variables by demonstrating that bi-directionality does matter. This paper also contributes to the CSRD literature in the emerging economy context. The bi-directional negative relationship between CSRD and government ownership calls for a transparent selection process of board members as representatives of the state in those companies where the government has an ownership stake. It also calls for a transparent process and ethical guidelines to guide government investment in firms.

This study examines the impact of Corporate Social Responsibility Disclosure (hereafter CSRD) on the Corporate Economic Performance (hereafter CEP) of a group of public shareholding companies in Jordan.

This study uses different proxies to examine the impact of CSRD on companies’ financial and economic value. The data were collected from a sample of 94 companies listed on the Amman Stock Exchange from 2010 to 2016. Based on a checklist of 41 indicators, this study employed the manual content analysis technique to collect and analyse CSRD data. A statistical analysis technique was also used to examine the hypothesized relationships between collected data on CSRD and profitability.

The findings indicate that CSRD is value-relevant. It is positively and statistically associated with firm value proxied by Tobin’s Q. In addition, it is positively and statistically associated with firm financial performance proxied by ROE and ROA.

This study contributes to the research debate on the relationship between CSRD and CEP, particularly in developing nations. The study draws attention to the need for information on different dimensions of CSR, including human resource, environmental, product responsibility, and community participation, as disclosure on such dimensions is positively associated with profitability.

The findings provide important implications for Jordanian corporate managers to maintain CSRD in their best interest. With more emphasis on disclosing stand-alone CSR reports, corporate managers can present more information on different dimensions of CSR, attracting the attention of stakeholders such as investors, the government, media, and humanitarian activists and enhancing overall corporate goodwill.

CSRD activities reflect a positive impact on CEP. Due to the dearth of relevant research conducted in developing countries, this study provides empirical evidence on the positive relationship between CSRD and CEP in an emerging economy, with more emphasis on specific dimensions of CSR, including human resources, environmental, product responsibility, and community participation. Since multiple proxies exist to measure profitability, this study uses multi-approaches for profitability examination proxied by Tobin’s Q, ROE, and ROA. Moreover, the issue of CSR is original and interesting to be examined in the Jordanian context, where the listed firms have reported a homogeneous perception of CSR.

This study aims to examine the moderating role of a country's economic activities and institutional quality (IQ) on the relationship between corporate social responsibility disclosure (CSRD) and banks' operational, financial and market performance.

This study examines 245 banks from emerging markets for 13 years (2008–2020), yielding unbalanced panel of 1899 bank-year observations. The independent variable is CSRD. The dependent variables are return on asset (ROA), return on equity (ROE) and Tobin Q. The authors used ordinary least square (OLS), panel fixed-effect and instrumental variables-generalized method of moments (IV-GMM) to estimate the parameters of the models.

The authors find that the CSRD scores negatively influence banks’ performance. The moderator of CSRD and the level of economic activities have a positive relationship with banks' performance. However, the moderator (CSRD and IQ), while showing positive relationship with banks' performance, has a significant effect only on banks' operational and financial performance.

This study provides new evidence on the ways in which economic performance and IQ (IQ) influence the CSRD practices of banks in emerging markets.

The peer review history for this article is available at https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-11-2020-0757.

This paper aims to synthesize the corporate social responsibility decoupling (CSRD) literature, CSRD's causes and consequences and discuss other organizational attributes examined by CSRD scholars during 2010 and 2020. The authors provide suggestions for a future research agenda in this domain.

The authors' systematic literature review (SLR) uses the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) framework to extract CSRD studies. The authors filter collected articles against quality and relevancy criteria and finally review 175 published articles.

A theme analysis identifies and structures the many themes related to CSRD. The authors discuss the drivers of CSRD and reveal the consequences companies face after CSRD. The authors also provide a comprehensive CSRD discussion in the context of developed and developing economies. CSR communication is also identified as a tool for decoupling and recoupling.

The identified themes provide a thorough illustration of CSRD literature for new CSRD scholars. The authors also provide suggestions for future research, such as examining country-level policy-making and implications of CSRD variance and identifying cultural and economic hurdles to achieving core CSR purposes.

Policymakers and scholars may adopt the approach that CSRD is a misreporting of information similar to accounting fraud. This is particularly relevant given that an increasing number of CSRD scandals indicate that the purpose of bringing change through corporate CSR has not been adopted well by corporations.

The authors' study offers a comprehensive literature review for the period of 2010–2020. The studies identified are structured into meaningful themes which can provide groundwork for future researchers.