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Because of growing corporate tax scandals, there is an enhanced focus on corporate taxation by governments, institutions and the general public. Transparency in tax matters has been identified as critical for effectively managing and promoting socially responsible tax behaviour. This study aims to explore the impact of ownership structure, board and audit committee characteristics on corporate tax responsibility (CTR) disclosure.

This research collected data from the annual reports of Pakistani-listed firms over 12 years, from 2009 to 2020. Consequently, the data set encompasses a total of 1,800 firm-year observations. This study uses regression analysis to test the relationship between corporate governance and CTR disclosure.

The results show that board gender diversity, managerial ownership and audit committee independence promote tax responsibility disclosure. In contrast, family board membership, CEO duality, foreign ownership and family ownership negatively impact tax responsibility disclosure. Additional analyses reveal the specific information categories that produce the overall effects on tax responsibility disclosure and assess the moderating impact of family firms on the governance and CTR disclosure nexus.

Corporations can use the results to encourage practices that enhance transparency and improve the quality of disclosures. Regulatory authorities can use the findings to stipulate better protocols. Doing so will be vital for developing countries such as Pakistan to improve tax revenue and cultivate economic growth.

While this research represents, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, one of the first empirical investigations of the association between corporate governance and CTR, the results contribute to the corporate governance literature and offer fresh insights into CTR, an emerging dimension of corporate social responsibility.

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.

In this fast-changing world, digitization has become crucial to organizations, allowing decision-makers to alter corporate processes. Companies with a higher corporate social responsibility (CSR) level not only help encourage employees to focus on their goals, but they also show that they take their social responsibility seriously, which is increasingly important in today’s digital economy. So, this study aims to examine the relationship between digital transformation and CSR disclosure of Chinese A-share companies. Furthermore, this research investigates the moderating impact of governance heterogeneity, including CEO power and corporate internal control (INT) mechanisms.

This study used fixed effect estimation with robust standard errors to examine the relationship between digital transformation and CSR disclosure and the moderating effect of governance heterogeneity among Chinese A-share companies from 2010 to 2020. The whole sample consists of 17,266 firms, including 5,038 state-owned enterprise (SOE) company records and 12,228 non-SOE records. The whole sample data is collected from the China Stock Market and Accounting Research, the Chinese Research Data Services and the WIND databases.

The regression results lead us to three conclusions after classifying the sample into non-SOE and SOE groups. First, Chinese A-share businesses with greater levels of digitalization have lower CSR disclosures. Both SOE and non-SOE are consistent with these findings. Second, increasing CEO authority creates a more centralized company decision-making structure (Breuer et al., 2022; Freire, 2019), which improves the negative association between digitalization and CSR disclosure. These conclusions, however, also apply to non-SOE. Finally, INT reinforces the association between corporate digitization and CSR disclosure, which is especially obvious in SOEs. These findings are robust to alternative HEXUN CSR disclosure index. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the negative relationship between corporate digitalization and CSR disclosures is more pronounced in bigger, highly levered and highly financialized firms.

Digitalization and CSR disclosure are well studied, but few have examined their interactions from a governance heterogeneity perspective in China. Practitioners and policymakers may use these insights to help business owners implement suitable digital policies for firm development from diverse business perspectives.

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) reporting has been widely accepted as a vital tool for communicating with stakeholders on a range of social, environmental, and governance issues, but how companies define, interpret, apply, integrate, and communicate their CSR efforts and impacts in corporate reporting is anything but a straightforward task. The purpose of this chapter is to explore the concept of materiality in CSR reporting and demonstrate practical examples of good CSR and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) reporting practices. We chose the aviation industry because of its economic relevance, constant growth, and future expected changes in the aftermath of COVID-19. In addition, airlines affect many of the SDGs directly and indirectly with contending results. This chapter is timely because of the growing willingness by companies to integrate CSR and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) thinking into the corporate strategy and business operations using materiality assessment and enhancing their competitive advantage and ability to maintain long-term value and because ESG and ethical investing have become part of the mainstream investing. Thus, this chapter contributes to an understanding of the wide range of existing and new reporting frameworks and regulations and reinforces the importance of discussing how this diversity of approaches can affect the work toward worldwide comparability of CSR and sustainability reporting.

Drawing on new insights from the perspectives and experiences of board members, the purpose of this study is to determine the board attributes that influence board roles in improving the integration of corporate social responsibility (CSR) into corporate governance structures. In total, 10 in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with directors of listed Jordanian companies to explore their perceptions of the effect of board of directors' composition on CSR and CSR disclosure (CSRD). The key findings show that boards with a diverse range of directors is essential independent/nonexecutive members, directors with business and/or accounting backgrounds, and foreign members to determine if they aim to better manage their CSR. To take CSR to the next level in the Arab region, we need to strengthen corporate governance mechanisms, and put more pressures on companies to make changes in board composition. For example, we suggest that companies that appoint business-educated and foreign members to their boards tend to engage in more impactful social and environmental-related activities and reflect their sustainable development more effectively. The study responds to calls for further research adopting qualitative methods, such as case studies and interviews in order to obtain a complete and in-depth understanding of the influence of board composition on CSR/CSRD. The findings provide useful insights for practice, policymakers, and future research.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has gained great attention among regulators, stock market authorities, and firms' stakeholders for many decades. In this chapter, we first review the main regulations, standards, and laws issued by UAE federal authorities namely the Company Commercial Law of 2015, the Abu Dhabi Stock Exchange (ADX) disclosure guidance of 2019, Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week, and UAE CSR platform. Second, we present a summary of the empirical research on CSR issues in UAE context, namely in the following four fields: (1) CSR determinants both at the micro and macro levels, (2) CSR measures in the three pillars (environmental, social, and governance), (3) the impact of CSR policy and practices on financial performance/market value, (4) and the role of some mediating/moderating variables such as leadership and board gender diversity. Results show greater compliance to CSR standards among different industries and institutions but heterogenous empirical findings in the four explored fields. While there is crucial alignment with both social and environmental standards as evidenced by numerous empirical studies, additional efforts should be deployed to highlight the governance pillar through firms' discretionary reporting. Our survey provides useful directives and outcomes as it portrays both legal aspects coupled with some empirical evidence of CSR issues in the UAE context. Our study helps corporations to comply with local standards on sustainability reporting and highlights the potential economic benefits and advantages for firms adopting CSR strategy. Furthermore, it can be considered as the cornerstone for regulatory bodies in the United Arab Emirates when issuing/enhancing new standards/rules on CSR practices.

The global economy has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has placed greater responsibility on companies to fulfill their obligations to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) amid the crisis. This chapter investigates the role of a Chief Executive Officer (CEO) attributes in improving a firm's CSR in the emerging economy of Jordan and how the COVID-19 pandemic modifies this relationship. Using a Jordanian sample of 655 firm-year observations during the 2014–2021 period, the research results show that older CEOs, well-educated CEOs, CEOs' remuneration, and CEOs' ownership positively correlate with CSR reporting. However, long-tenured CEOs are associated with lower CSR initiatives. The subsample analysis findings also validate the significance of CEO attributes in improving CSR practice during the COVID-19 pandemic compared to the prepandemic period. These findings are beneficial for the regulatory setters to understand better whether CEO attributes are linked to engagement in CSR-related information. This research is among the limited number of studies that have explored how CEO attributes impact CSR reporting for the stakeholder's welfare. Moreover, it uniquely concentrated on contrasting the findings before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This study aims to examine the relationship of Indonesia’s Sharia Stock Index (ISSI) firms on environmental, social and governance (ESG) disclosure. This study is interesting because ISSI firms are supposed to comply with Islamic values as this has been reflected in good corporate governance activities, demonstrating responsibility to others and participating in preserving nature/environmental activities.

The authors use sample firms that are listed on the Indonesia Shariah-compliant Stock Index (ISSI) from 2011 to 2020, which also published sustainability reports.

The study found that sharia firms are positively related to ESG disclosure. The authors also found that ESG disclosure of sharia firms is more pronounced in the reporting section of general, economic, environmental and social. Other findings suggest differences in the segments reported in the COVID and pre-COVID periods. This result is also robust by conducting a self-selection bias test with Heckman’s two-stage regression and Coarsened Exact Matching regression.

For policymakers, these results indicate that different characteristics of firms can affect ESG disclosure, and economic conditions will determine which sectors are disclosed the most.

This study provides empirical evidence that Indonesian Shariah-compliant stock index firms carried out their mission to disclose more information about their environmental and social responsibilities and governance issues.

This research investigates the influence of corporate–NGO collaborations on corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure measured in three different ways (i.e. extent, level and quality) in low-income developing economies. Additionally, it examines the moderating effect of corporate profitability in the relationship between corporate–NGO collaborations and CSR disclosure.

This research uses multivariate regression analysis based on data collected from 201 non-financial firms listed on the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSE).

The findings reveal that corporations with NGO partnerships are more likely to disclose CSR information and provide high-quality information regarding workers, the environment and community-related issues. Further, corporate profitability positively moderates the corporate–NGO collaborations and CSR disclosure relationship.

Research limitations are presented in the conclusion section.

The findings underline the crucial significance of NGOs and their associated normative isomorphism logics for CSR disclosure in low-income countries with weak law enforcement and relatively ineffective state institutions, which were previously believed to lack such institutions.

While some research has suggested that companies in developing countries perceive significant pressure from NGOs to adopt social disclosure, no study has specifically explored how internally driven corporate–NGO collaboration (as opposed to external NGO activist pressures) promotes CSR disclosure specifically in developing economies.