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The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between corporate governance characteristics, namely the board size, board independence, duality, audit committee, ten largest shareholders, managerial ownership, foreign ownership and government ownership and the extent of corporate social responsibility disclosure.

The content analysis was used to extract the CSR disclosure items from annual report and companies' web sites. Then, a CSR disclosure index was constructed after combining CSR disclosure items disclosed both in annual reports and in companies' web sites. Hierarchical regression analysis was used to examine the relationship between the corporate social disclosures index and the independent variables, namely the board size, board independence, duality, audit committee, ten largest shareholders, managerial ownership, foreign ownership and government ownership after statistically controlling the effects of a firm's size and the profitability of the companies.

Results based on the full regression models indicated that only two variables were associated with the extent of disclosures, namely government ownership and audit committee. Government ownership and audit committee are positively and significantly correlated with the level of corporate social responsibility disclosure. The most significant variable that influences the level of CSR disclosure is government ownership.

The findings are limited to the context of the study and it was limited to Malaysian public listed companies, January to December 2006. The sources of data in this study were companies' annual reports and web sites only.

The study is useful to organizations and statutory bodies to take into consideration in identifying the corporate governance characteristics that will enhance CSR disclosure, since it had been shown in previous studies that corporate social responsibility reporting in Malaysia is generally low. The government can determine how important it is that a company should be willing to allocate their costs towards corporate social responsibility activities. Thus, this study will emphasize the level of activities through corporate social responsibility reporting in Malaysian public listed companies and help the government to ascertain the level of corporate social responsibility activities through corporate social responsibility reporting among Malaysian public listed companies.

The study reveals the extent of the disclosure of corporate social responsibility to companies web sites and constructed the CSR index based on two sources of data, namely companies' web sites and annual reports.

This chapter discusses and investigates the sustainability reporting across different sectors. The first section discusses and investigates the relationship between sustainability reporting and primary sector's performance (Agriculture and Food Industries Sector and Energy Sector). The second section discusses and investigates the relationship between sustainability reporting and secondary sector's performance (Manufacturing Sector). The final section discusses and investigates the relationship between sustainability reporting and tertiary sector's performance (Banks and Financial Services Sector, Retail Sector, Telecommunication and Information Technology Sector, and Tourism Sector).

Empirical studies on corporate social responsibility disclosures have been conducted in Western countries to consider the possible sources of pressure for disclosure and also to examine the effect of corporate size, systematic risk, social constraints and management decision horizon upon such disclosure. This paper undertakes an empirical study in India, in order to extend the understanding of specific relationships between individual corporate characteristics and the types of social responsibility disclosures that public sector companies make. One hundred annual reports from ten industries are analysed use to consider the impact of four independent variables (size, industry, profitability, and presence of social responsibility committee) on the number of disclosures in each of the seven categories (environment, energy, fair business practices, human resources, community involvement, product safety and other disclosures). Regression analysis revealed, amongst other findings, that 28% of the variation in total number of disclosures is explained by four independent variables and that company size is the most significant variable.

Purpose – This study's purpose is twofold. First, we assess the extent of corporate social responsibility disclosure. Second, we investigate the determinants of the decision to disclose social responsibility information.

Methodology/approach – This research focuses on analyzing corporate social responsibility disclosure through the annual reports of 23 Tunisian listed firms over a four-year period from 2001 to 2004. A multivariate analysis of social responsibility disclosure is employed to test the factors influencing this type of disclosure.

Findings – The findings in this study suggest that corporate social responsibility disclosure did increase from 2001 to 2004 and disclosure was primarily literal and regarding products. Results also suggest that a firm's internationalization degree, their debt level, and the degree of their political visibility are the significant factors influencing the decision of corporate social responsibility disclosure.

Research limitations and implications – This study is subject to the usual limits of the content analysis method use. The small size of the sample, its composition, and its choice in a nonrandom way may make it suffer from selectivity bias.

Originality/value – This study contributes to the analysis of corporate social responsibility disclosure practices in an emerging country context by analyzing the nature of the trends in social responsibility disclosure practices and examining the impact of certain firm characteristics on such practices.

The aim of this paper is to determine corporate social reporting practices and to examine the type and extent of such reporting in the corporate reports of manufacturing companies in Swaziland over a period of two years from 2007 to 2008. This paper also aims to examine the various areas of social practices in which companies are involved.

The study uses questionnaires and corporate reports to gather information from 30 selected manufacturing companies. This research uses content analysis of corporate reports as a method to measure the extent and nature of corporate social reporting according to the number of words disclosed over the two‐year period.

Findings show that the concept of corporate social responsibility is fairly new in Swaziland and very few companies disclose corporate social responsibility information in corporate reports. However, the study finds that there is a trend of increasing corporate social responsibility information disclosures among the companies from 2007 to 2008.

The increasing trend of corporate social responsibility information disclosures indicates a positive step towards the further development of corporate social responsibility information reporting practice in Swaziland as well as other developing African countries.

The study makes an important contribution to the knowledge of corporate social responsibility in Swaziland. In addition, it also elaborates the perspective for a greater understanding of the social obligations that corporate entities owe to their stakeholders and society in general.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of board and audit committee characteristics on corporate social responsibility (CSR) in Iranian companies listed in stock exchanges.

This is a descriptive-correlational and an applied research. The statistical population of this research is all companies listed in Tehran Stock Exchange and the research period is from 2012 to 2018. Using screening method a sample of 150 companies was selected. Multivariate regression and the software Eviews 10 were used for data analysis and hypothesis testing.

The results indicated that board size had a significant effect on CSR; board independence had a significant effect on CSR; managerial ownership did not have a significant effect on CSR; CEO duality did not have a significant effect on CSR; audit committee size had a significant effect on CSR; audit committee independence had a significant effect on CSR; and financial expertise of audit committee members had a significant effect on CSR.

The present study is the first research performed on the effect of board and audit committee characteristics on CSR in Iran. The results of this study contribute to the literature on the effect of board and audit committee characteristics on CSR and provide suggestions for capital market participants. CSR helps reduce asymmetric distribution of information among the internal and external organizational entities and reduce agency problems and conflicts among different groups. Based on the results, an effective audit committee as an effective mechanism enhances the credibility of financial and non-financial reporting such as social responsibility, which means that an effective audit committee can improve the level of voluntary disclosure of information through effective oversight of the reporting process. It is also suggested that companies focus on audit committee characteristics to increase the level of CSR.

This study examines social responsibility information disclosure on the Internet by Portuguese listed companies in 2003 and also analyses annual reports as a disclosure medium for those companies which disclose such information on their web pages. The results are interpreted through the lens of legitimacy theory, according to which companies disclose social responsibility information to present a socially responsible image so that they can legitimise their behaviours to their stakeholder groups. Companies in sectors that have a larger potential impact on the environment or in industries with a high visibility among consumers seem to exhibit greater concern to improve the corporate image through social responsibility information disclosure. Results thus suggest that legitimacy theory may be an explanation of social responsibility disclosure by Portuguese listed companies.

The research aims to empirically investigate the determinants of the breadth of the corporate social disclosure (CSD).

The study adopts a multi-perspective approach, referring to different theoretical frameworks on CSD, such as the legitimacy theory, the stakeholder theory, the agency model, the asymmetric information theory, and the institutional perspective.

The empirical research is based on the sustainability reports of 80 companies in which investments were made by European socially responsible funds (SRFs) listed on the Morningstar platform during the years 2009–2008.

The theoretical hypotheses are tested by a univariate and multivariate analysis.

The breadth of the CSD depends on multiple factors, both external and internal, such as the country of origin, the industry reputation, the firm size, the frequency of the SRFs participation, the corporate social performance.

Limits inherent in this type of research are the comparability of the CSR reports and the systematization of the categories of content to be analyzed.

The chapter identifies several factors that lead to a greater completeness of the CSD, exploiting the capacity of the social reporting to trigger benefits for the firms such as a stronger social legitimacy and the reduction of asymmetric information.

The research supports the investigation of the levers of CSD to meet the demand for a broader accountability.

The reference to firms in which SRFs participated allows to focus on companies ascertained as socially responsible in accordance with a “certification function” of these funds. Findings support an approach which is not one-sided, thus enabling to look at the determinants of the CSD through different theoretical perspectives.

This study aims to examine the effect of the structure of board of directors and company ownership on social responsibility disclosure of listed companies on the Tehran Stock Exchange.

The variables of the study included independent board of directors, institutional ownership, managerial ownership, family ownership and family-managerial ownership. The study population consisted of 125 listed companies on the Tehran Stock Exchange during the years 2009-2014. Content analysis used to measure social responsibility disclosure level and test hypothesis was performed using multiple regression analysis.

The results demonstrated that there was no significant relationship between any of the independent variables and the level of social responsibility disclosure. This study empirically shows managers, investors and other stakeholders that if business owners are made of different groups, namely, institutional ownership, managerial and family ownership, it will not affect the social responsibility disclosure in annual reports.

The outcomes of the current study may bridge the gap between social responsibility disclosure and ownership structure in a developing country like Iran.

This study examines the association between management control systems (MCSs), specifically the interactive and diagnostic use of controls, with the corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure-action portrayal gap (i.e. the disparity in employees’ perception of their organisation’s emphasis on CSR disclosures relative to CSR actions) and the subsequent impact on employees’ perceptions of organisational performance, both operational performance and corporate social performance. Data were collected using a survey of US lower-level managers, with the data obtained from 209 respondents and analysed using structural equation modelling (SEM). The results reveal that the interactive and diagnostic use of controls both exhibit a significant negative association with the CSR disclosure-action portrayal gap, that is, the use of these controls reduces the gap. In addition, the various dimensions of the CSR disclosure-action portrayal gap exhibit a significant negative association with both operational and corporate social performance, that is, lower gap, higher performance. The study contributes to the CSR literature by providing the first empirical insight into employees’ perception of both CSR disclosures and actions, and hence, the CSR disclosure-action portrayal gap. In addition, the study contributes to the MCS and organisational performance literature by providing the initial empirical insight into the role of MCSs in mitigating the gap through enhancing the interactive and diagnostic use of controls, and the negative association between the gap and employees’ perceptions of organisational performance.