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This article analyzes the interplay between regulation and social and environmental reporting in northern Italian social enterprises. Specifically, it investigates how “non-accredited” social enterprises discharge voluntary accountability before and after the introduction of regulation making social and environmental reporting compulsory for “accredited-social enterprises.” By developing a content analysis on 170 stand-alone social and environmental reports, this article provides a longitudinal analysis of voluntary disclosures in a regulated context from 2006 (before regulation) to 2009 (after regulation). Based on the total number of disclosures and the average number of sentences per report, Italian “non-regulated” social enterprises showed increased voluntary disclosure on social and environmental matters from 2006 to 2009; however, when analyzing the average sentences per report, it emerges that the information contained in the stand-alone social and environmental reports decreased, especially disclosures related to “social-related issues.” This article looks beyond crude noncompliance analysis with legislation and analyzes if the regulation influences organizations’ voluntary disclosure. It analyzes all of the social and environmental disclosures provided by northern Italian “non-accredited” social enterprises before and after the introduction of regulation. The novelty of this article rests in the fact that it does not analyze the social and environmental disclosure of “legal social enterprises”; rather, it considers the whole voluntary disclosure context for “non-accredited” social enterprises in a regulated environment.

This paper aims to examine firm characteristics and ownership structure determinants of corporate social and environmental voluntary disclosure (CSEVD) practices in Saudi Arabia to address the paucity of research in this field for Saudi listed firms.

The paper uses manual content and regression analyses for online annual report data for Saudi non-financial listed firms over the period 2016–2018 using CSEVD items drawing on global reporting initiative-G4 guidelines.

Models show that Saudi firm CSEVD has increased over time compared to previous studies to an average of 68% disclosure due to new corporate governance regulations and IFRS implementation. The models show that firm size, leverage, manufacturing industry type and government ownership are positive determinants of CSEVD, while family ownership is the negative driver of CSEVD. However, firm profitability, audit firm size, firm age and institutional ownership have no impact on the level of CSEVD.

Using legitimacy and stakeholder theories, the paper determines the influence of firm characteristics and ownership structure on CSEVD, identifying implications for firm stakeholders and providing some evidence on the impact of corporate governance regulation and IFRS implementation on such disclosure. The paper provides additional evidence on progress towards Saudi’s Vision 2030.

This study aims to construct two environmental disclosure indices (EDI), one obtained from the mandatory reporting (annual report) and the other from the voluntary reporting (sustainability report), to compare their evolution. In addition, the authors developed and evaluated a conceptual model that aims to analyse if the two EDI are affected by industry, environmental certification, lucratively and corporate governance attributes. The legitimacy, signalling and voluntary disclosure theories are used to support the theoretical relationship between the company’s characteristics, corporate governance and environmental disclosure.

Using the content analysis technique, the authors have developed two indices to assess the level of environmental disclosure in the companies’ mandatory and voluntary reporting. In addition, to analyse the determinants of EDI, the authors applied the technique of multiple linear regression using panel data.

Based on Portuguese listed companies (Euronext-Lisbon), the results, from 2015 to 2017, exhibited an increase of 14.6% and 25.8% for the EDI obtained from the annual reports and for EDI obtained from the sustainability reporting, respectively. In addition, the results revealed that the environmental certification, lucratively, number of members on board and number and proportion of women of the board directors tend to affect the annual reporting EDI. Regarding the sustainability reporting EDI, the results showed that the environmental certification, lucratively and proportion of independent members of the board of directors have an impact on it.

The study focuses on quantitative rather than qualitative disclosures and it brings some insights to the theoretical field.

The results obtained can assist corporate decision-making processes regarding the improvement of environmental disclosure, both on the mandatory annual report and on voluntary sustainability reports.

This study brings new perspectives to this topical issue in accounting. Originally, this study is applied to Portuguese listed companies and it shows different trends and determinants of environmental disclosure when included in the annual reporting or sustainability reporting.

Albeit gradual and uneven, the emergence of social and environmental reporting by publicly held corporations has been a major development in the last few decades. This paper aims to explore patterns of the emergence of these disclosures. Using an institutional theory lens, this paper considers mimetic, normative and coercive possibilities.

US publicly traded company data from 2013 to 2019 is used to test the hypotheses. Mimetic forces are proxied with corporate board interlock frequency. Normative ones use the extent of gender diversity on corporate boards. Measures of business climate and industry regulatory sensitivity proxy coercive potentiality.

Studied in isolation, each of the three forces through which organizations pursue the heightened legitimacy of enhanced environmental and social disclosures has credibility. The strongest support exists for mimetic and normative mechanisms, perhaps because the US government has been reluctant to make these expanded disclosures mandatory.

In the world of voluntary action, more attention to diffusion is needed. For these purposes, better proxies will be needed to study change. Social and environmental information should be separated for individual analysis.

At least in the USA, companies are attentive to what other companies are doing. There is something to be said for the ethical dimension of corporate transparency.

Governmental action in this area has not been effective, at current levels. Corporate leadership is essential. Critical information is shared about disclosure by board members.

Although institutional theory makes several appearances in this area, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, the current study is the first empirical archival study to examine the three forces simultaneously, providing evidence as to the relative magnitude of each institutional force on environmental and social disclosures. Should these disclosures not be mandated by government, this study shows pathways for enhanced disclosures to continue to spread.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationships between corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure, corporate governance and financial analysts’ information environment, as proxied by their ability to forecast a firm’s earnings. Hence, we extend prior voluntary disclosure research.

Our paper considers that the determination of CSR disclosure, corporate governance and financial analyst forecasting work are closely intertwined. Therefore, we rely on simultaneous equations to explore these relations.

Findings show that there is a direct relation between both CSR disclosure and corporate governance and financial analysts’ information environment: more disclosure and better governance translate into a tighter consensus in earnings forecasts as well as less dispersion. However, corporate governance substitutes for CSR disclosure in improving analyst forecast precision, thus supporting a comprehensive view of corporate governance that encompasses disclosure. Finally, results also suggest that CSR disclosure, through its effect on governance and analyst following, has an indirect influence on analyst forecast precision. Overall, it appears that both CSR disclosure and good corporate governance attract analysts and improve their ability to forecast earnings.

To the best of our knowledge, our study is the first to investigate the joint effect of corporate governance and CSR disclosure on analyst forecast precision.

Brazil’s agribusiness sector is an acknowledged and relevant player in international markets. Companies operating in this industry have been closely observed by society with increasingly critical judgment relating to production systems and the impact of these companies. In this context, this study aims to assess the voluntary disclosure of social and environmental information of Brazilian agribusiness companies and test the determinant factors.

The research hypotheses are based on stakeholder theory, legitimacy theory and results from social and environmental disclosure studies. Confirmatory factor analysis was adopted to build the dependent variables, and the Tobit model was used for hypotheses testing. The sample includes the 150 largest agribusiness companies in Brazil.

The results show that the disclosure measures of agribusiness companies differ by segment and that internationalization, negative media exposure and pollution are critical factors in increased voluntary social and environmental disclosure.

Knowledge about the determinants and quality of voluntary disclosure is key in driving social responsibility policies. In addition, they are useful to executives for the preparation of social responsibility and environmental reports.

The results of this study contribute to the literature on voluntary social and environmental disclosure by providing information on an important but poorly studied sector, namely, agribusiness in Brazil.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the approaches used by researchers in examining the influences of external factors towards voluntary disclosure in emerging countries.

The data collected in this study were collected through a review of empirical literature based on 35 articles published between 1998 and 2013. The sample articles on the link between external factors and the level of voluntary disclosure were located by searching keywords in the most relevant social science research databases such as Business Source Premier, Emerald full text, JSTOR, Science Direct, Scopus, and Social Science Research Network.

The result reveals that research in voluntary disclosure practices by companies in emerging countries remains low. The majority of studies employed content analysis to examine the extent of voluntary disclosure practices. Results from studies show that greater regulatory enforcement in the region and increase in stakeholders’ comprehension about their rights and choices with regards to business activities can influence the majority of the companies to provide voluntary disclosure. The literature revealed that social responsibility and environmental information are the popular categories of voluntary disclosure while risk and human capital/intellectual capital are the least popular categories.

The paper is limited to a review of 35 articles.

The study provides avenues for policy makers and regulators to carry out reforms on voluntary disclosure practices.

The findings may provide insights to capital market regulators when conducting effective regulation and supervision of information transparency in listed companies.

Since limited studies exist that examine voluntary disclosure in emerging countries, little is known about the implications of external factors such as a country’s policy, regulations, stakeholders, and business environment on voluntary disclosure practices. This paper contributes to filling this gap by a review of articles of empirical research on voluntary disclosure in emerging countries.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate multinational corporations' (MNCs) voluntary practice of including corporate social and environmental disclosure (CSED) on their web sites and characteristics that inspire MNCs to be more accountable in this regard.

This study adopts discrimination analysis to test six hypotheses to determine which variables influence the MNCs to post their CSED on the web sites. Data from a sample of 49 MNCs were analyzed with STATISTICA. The independent variables tested include log of total assets (size) and log of total equity (size), return on assets (profitability), debt ratio (risk), auditor (Big4 and non‐Big4), country effect (origin the USA or non‐USA) and industry effect (manufacturing versus services).

The results show that companies with a strong equity base and in a good financial condition have a propensity to voluntarily disclose more environmental information. For social disclosure, company size and the profitability discriminate the most. MNCs disclose a number of items pertaining to the two areas. These results are in line with evidence found in some prior studies.

This study has its limitations. First, the results would be more conclusive if more companies had been included in the sample. Second, only six variables are tested and there may be scope for explaining the extent of the internet disclosure using other variables. Third, this research does not look into the quality of CSRD.

This study provides an empirical analysis of practices and characteristics of MNCs relating to CSRD on their web sites. The findings from this study help understand MNCs' corporate behavior in terms of CSED.

This study has, for the first time, included three more variables (financial risk, profitability, and country effect) to investigate the disclosure of social and environmental information by MNCs through their web sites, on which there is limited evidence.

This paper was motivated by the current debate over the voluntary approach to environmental disclosures in corporate annual reports and assesses the effectiveness of the current policy of voluntarism in the UK. A brief review of the relevant theories, which explain why managers might choose to voluntarily provide environmental responsibility information to parties outside the organisation, is presented. With this background, the paper then questions whether the UK government’s faith in voluntarism and the pursuit of best practice will be enough to generate any real change in current environmental reporting practices. We argue that voluntarism is not effective and that there is an urgent need to introduce strict governmental regulations on the information that must be disclosed and the form in which it should be presented in corporate annual reports as have been established in several other countries. In addition, further consideration is needed to achieve reforms in academic accounting education in order to improve corporate accountability and transparency in corporate annual reports. Organisations need to respond to the growing demands for corporate social and environmental responsibility and this will be possible with the support of an accounting profession that takes a more proactive approach to engaging with stakeholders. For this to happen, we need to rethink the focus of accounting and business education. We must move away from the dominant model, which treats accountancy as a set of techniques, towards a more holistic approach which recognises the social and environmental impacts of organisational activity.

Public-interest entities – among which are listed companies – are obliged to publish nonfinancial disclosure in some countries and regions. The European Commission established mandatory nonfinancial disclosure by Directive 2014/95/EU. While a large body of literature was developed on sustainability reporting quality (SRQ) in voluntary context, evidence about the effect of mandatory nonfinancial disclosure on SRQ is controversial and previous experiences worldwide did not make clear if obligatoriness improves SRQ. This chapter aims to bridge the gap of empirical evidence about this phenomenon in European countries, focusing on first implementation of new legislation by Italian and German companies. The research has an explorative character and it adopts content analysis methods performed on sustainability reporting practices of companies listed in FTSE-MIB and DAX 30. The analysis aims to understand if obligatoriness affects SRQ, causes some changes in reporting practices such as harmonizing Italian and German ones by performing a cross-country comparison. The findings suggest that obligatoriness improves reporting quality and, above all, it fills the gap between different countries by fostering the adoption of international guidelines and the consequent introduction of some content, such as materiality analysis and quantitative measures of social and environmental performance.