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This study empirically tests a comprehensive set of relevant factors to explain environmental reporting quality. This study aims to understand whether environmental assurance has a direct effect on “environmental reporting quality”. In addition, this study also aims to examine the relationship between corporate governance and the quality of environmental reporting as measured by voluntary and timely reporting.

A number of econometric techniques are used including panel data specifications using a sample of French listed companies in SBF120 for the period 2012–2017.

The results demonstrate that the presence of an environmental audit committee and the size of the environmental external assurance firm has a significant effect on the level of voluntary reporting of environmental information. The results also reveal that the presence of the environmental audit committee, as well as the corporate social responsibility (CSR) committee, the size of the environmental external assurance and corporate governance index, affect the timely environmental reporting.

This study helps all market participants to more comprehensively evaluate the quality of environmental reporting in the French context and highlights whether various factors could affect the quality of the environmental information disclosed using a multi-theoretical framework.

This paper fills the gap in the literature by highlighting an unexplored field of literature about the quality of environmental reporting by linking on the division of the quality of environmental information reporting into sub-dimensions (voluntary reporting and timely reporting) in the French context. To the knowledge, no empirical study has been done on the timely reporting of environmental information in the French context or other contexts. The originality of the work consists of the fact that it is one of the first works that deal with the relationship between environmental external assurance, corporate governance and the quality of environmental reporting.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically test legitimacy theory by comparing the corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosures of tax aggressive corporations with those of non‐tax aggressive corporations in Australia.

A unique sample of 20 Australian corporations accused by the Australian Taxation Office of engaging in tax aggressive activities during the 2001‐2006 period was hand‐collected. These 20 tax aggressive corporations were then matched with 20 non‐tax aggressive corporations (based on industry classification, corporation size and time period). This process generated a choice‐based sample of 40 corporations for empirical analysis. Using content analysis techniques, financial accounting data were gathered from the Aspect‐Huntley database and CSR disclosures were individually measured for each corporation in the sample. Various statistical techniques were then used (e.g. paired sample statistics, Pearson correlation analysis and ordinary least squares regression analysis) to test legitimacy theory.

Overall, the empirical results consistently show a positive and statistically significant association between corporate tax aggressiveness and CSR disclosure, thereby confirming legitimacy theory in the context of corporate tax aggressiveness.

The paper provides empirical evidence in support of legitimacy theory as an explanation for why specific corporations disclose more CSR‐related information than others. Additionally, to the best of the authors' knowledge, the paper is one of the first to document an empirical association between corporate tax aggressiveness and CSR in the literature.

This study aims to investigate the relationship between corporate social contribution measures and investors’ reaction under the effect of corporate governance for firms listed in China, the largest emerging economy in the world. Corporate social contribution is examined from an informative perspective by using a financial indicator – social contribution value per share (SCVPS) brought up by the Shanghai Stock Exchange in 2008.

Data are obtained from two channels: financial information during 2007-2015 generated from database and social accounting information manually collected from the 2007-2015 annual reports and social reports.

It is predicted that investors’ reaction toward corporate social contribution becomes stronger for companies with higher corporate governance quality.

This paper is one of the first to use Chinese SCVPS data to indicate the informativeness of social contribution toward firm value. It can serve as a valuable reference to both investors and companies in terms of the issue of social contribution.

The study highlights the importance of social contribution on firm value by using an empirical approach in the Chinese market. The study can be used as a reference for many other developing countries in the world.

The findings of this study can provide guidance to investors on how to evaluate a firm’s social performance and encourage companies to improve the transparency of their social reporting, as well as the quality of corporate governance.

This paper aims to analyze the role of female directors on CSR disclosure. It assumes the existence of faultlines when studying gender diversity and classifies female directors into three categories: industry experts, advisors and community leaders. It also examines the influence of the power of female directors as a moderator on the association between female director categories and CSR disclosure.

The paper bases on a dynamic generalized method of moments panel estimator which allows controlling for the unobservable heterogeneity and endogeneity and reduces the estimation bias.

Results confirm the double-sided nature of gender diversity, noting different behavior among female directors according to their experience and backgrounds. Moreover, the dominating owner position of female directors can balance and moderate the effect of female directors appointed for their technical knowledge or political and social ties. The results also confirm the necessity to not consider all women directors as a homogeneous group and explore the influence and interrelations of female faultlines on CSR disclosure.

The paper highlights the need to consider the specific skills, expertise, and connections of female board members when analyzing the effect of board composition, and supports the view that firms should emphasize the unique human and social capital of directors to understand how boards impact on firm strategies. Specifically, the authors support the recommendations of the European Commission (2011) regarding the need to increase skills and expertise when selecting new non-executive female board members.

At a time when most governments are introducing active policies that require firms to nominate women to boards, the understanding of the consequences of women’s presence on boards and the interrelations between female power and the diverse categories of female directors is timely and important.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper that provides empirical evidence to the scarcely studied area of the human and social capital of female directors’ roles in CSR disclosure, providing an alternative view of the role of women in corporate board effectiveness.

This paper aims to investigate whether providing voluntary external assurance on voluntary environmental information by firms operating in environmentally sensitive industries (ESI) is relevant in terms of market value. It also examines how various characteristics of assurance statements (i.e. level of assurance, scope of assurance and provider of assurance) affect the value-relevance of environmental disclosure by ESI firms.

To mitigate the endogeneity problem, the authors use the two-step generalized method of moments estimation approach.

Focusing on annual and social reports of French companies listed in the SBF120 index, results show that environmental disclosure by ESI firms and its assurance are destructive in terms of market value. Moreover, while providing a broader scope of assurance and having a professional accountant as the assurance provider enhance the value relevance of environmental reporting of the whole sample, this is unlikely to be the case for ESI firms. In particular, a higher level of environmental disclosure is financially rewarded by market participants for ESI firms that provide a higher level of assurance.

The study provides a better understanding of the circumstances under which market participants assign value to voluntary environmental information disclosed by companies operating in ESI. It also provides insights into the value added to different characteristics inherent in the quality of assurance provided with regard to environmental disclosure.

The study indicates that the institutional context of the relationship between the firm and its shareholders influence the value obtained from assurance. Results provide value insights regarding cultural and legal dimensions of environmental reporting.

The study extends the prior literature on the capital market benefits of voluntary assurance practices by focusing on the French legal environment. France can be considered as a new institutional context that has been little addressed by the existing literature.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a multidimensional model for assessing the quality of corporate environmental reporting (CER) incorporating both preparer- and user-based views.

As opposed to frequently used researcher-chosen proxies, the authors used an online questionnaire asking preparers and users how they assess the quality of a company’s environmental report.

The analysis of the responses of 177 users and 86 preparers shows that quantity was not perceived as the most significant element in determining quality. Besides quantity, the respondents also perceived information types, measures used, themes disclosed, adopting reporting guidelines, inclusion of assurance statement and the use of visual tools as significant dimensions/features of reporting quality.

The online questionnaire has some limitations, especially in terms of researcher being absent to clarify meanings and, hence, possibilities that respondents may misinterpret the questionnaire elements.

Considering that robust, reliable measurement of reporting quality is difficult, preparers, standard setters and policy makers need multidimensional quality models that incorporate both users’ perceptions of quality and preparers’ pragmatic understanding of the quality delivery process. These will make the preparers informed of whether their disclosure may be falling short of users’ expectations.

Amid, increasing complexity of CER, the research contributes to the growing body of literature on assessing the quality of CER by developing a less subjective, multidimensional, preparer–user-based quality model. This innovative quality model goes beyond the traditional quality models, subjective author-based quality measures. Focussing on the three dimensions of reporting quality – content, credibility and communication – it also offers a high-level resolution of meaning of CER quality.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an exploratory case study of mass mainstream tour operators in the Canadian market and evaluate their awareness level of corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities. The research aims to address the structure and ownership of mass Canadian tour operators, how it may influence the adoption of CSR practices, key issues and concerns and awareness level and participation of CSR practices. Although the Canadian outbound leisure mass market is relatively small compared with that of the UK, Canadian travelers are a significant source of tourism to Mexico and the Caribbean islands such as Cuba and the Dominican Republic.

Canadian mass tour operators were contacted through interviews and questionnaires to assess the structure and ownership of mass Canadian tour operators, how it may influence the adoption of CSR practices, key issues and concerns and awareness level and participation of CSR practices. Existing responsible tourism practices in the destinations they operate were also gauged.

CSR is gaining momentum worldwide as companies begin to realize that their stakeholders are demanding accountability that goes beyond shareholders' interests. Subsequently, reporting levels are increasingly being regulated and corporate strategic initiatives focusing on improving their social and environmental responsibility are on the rise. In the case of tour operators, however, initiatives of this nature are preliminary and there is little implementation of CSR practices.

The study examines Canadian mass tourism package tour operators and further research is needed to assess all tour operators (inbound and outbound) to determine whether the level of participation in responsible travel is higher or whether size is an implicating factor. As issues such as climate change and responsible tourism have only started to influence consumer demand in the past few years, the study's findings may be changing. Therefore a further follow‐up study would be beneficial in order to determine any barriers to action.

To date, little research has been done on the tourism industry, and that mainly on hotels. There is a need to understand the structure and contribution of tour operators to the industry and their level of CSR practices and movement towards more responsible tourism.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication is a strategy to address companies’ goodwill to the society. Based on the institutional theory suggesting the influence of environmental factors of companies’ country-of-origins on their marketing practices, the purpose of this paper is to explore and compare the CSR communication practices of apparel firms from different countries.

As a case study approach, this study investigates six apparel firms’ CSR communication disclosures on the official websites using a content analysis method and the Global Reporting Initiative’s categorial CSR reporting guidelines.

Findings revealed that the six firms’ CSR communication adoption levels and focusses varied; the USA firms largely focussed on labor issues, while the European firms focussed on environmental issues and the Asian firms centered on social issues.

Although this study has limitations that pertain to case studies in general, this study provides academic contributions to the literature and managerial implications about different CSR focusses and communication activities across countries.

CSR is especially important for the apparel business that highly involves social issues such as labor-intensive production. However, limited research showed how apparel firms are actually communicating CSR. This study was one of the early attempts on this topic.

This study aims to examine the effect of corporate social responsibility (CSR) adoption on differentiation and cost leadership strategies and how governance structure moderates this CSR–strategy relationship.

The study data were retrieved from Thomson Reuters for non-financial firms between 2013 and 2019, and a fixed-effects panel regression analysis was executed.

The results indicate that CSR fosters cost leadership strategy but weakens differentiation strategy. This result supports the value generation school for cost leaders but also confirms the agency theory perspective for differentiators. Moreover, the governance structure does not moderate the relationship between a firm's CSR engagement and its business strategy, which implies a lack of corporate policies that concurrently consider both its CSR investment and strategies.

The findings of this study imply that cost leaders can integrate CSR practices into their business strategy and use their CSR engagement to increase their competitive position by stimulating cost efficiency and creating greater turnover. On the contrary, for differentiators, there is a trade-off between environmental and social engagement and business strategies. Thus, they are advised to enrich their unique product development abilities through the integration of environmental and social practices and reinforce their competitive position by addressing stakeholders' interests. The practical implication of the moderation analysis is that there is no rooted corporate policy behind the connection between CSR and firm strategy for both cost leaders and differentiators, which constitutes a missing link.

The findings of this study are of critical importance for firms, offering justification for the integration of two vital perspectives: social and environmental sustainability and financial sustainability. The moderating effect of governance performance tests the upper echelon's role in maintaining both sustainability perspectives concurrently and strengthening the legitimacy of the firms in society. Although maintaining a business strategy is important for shareholders' interests, pursuing a social and environmental sustainability strategy is crucial for meeting the expectations of all stakeholders.

The purpose of this study is to survey the corporate social and environmental reporting (CSR) practices of Egyptian corporate entities. It aims at contributing to the body of knowledge on the CSR disclosure phenomenon in developing/transitional economies.

A 34‐item disclosure index covering environmental, energy, human resources, customer and community involvement issues was used to rank corporations.

A review of a random sample of 60 annual reports for the 2002 financial year revealed significant differences in reporting practices among the members of the nine industry segments surveyed. Findings of this research also lend support to the significance of ownership structure on the reporting decision.

The study is based on the annual report disclosures of corporations in the industrial sector. Hence, the conclusions arrived at should not be generalised to the non‐industrial sector. A longitudinal study based on a reasonably large sample, which includes the non‐industrial sector, is needed to highlight trends in CSR reporting practices in Egypt. In‐depth case study‐type research would also facilitate understanding of not only what, but also why and how companies are making social and environmental disclosures in Egypt.

Reviews of disclosure practices in different parts of the world are always welcome and are arguably somewhat limited in developing countries.