A Longitudinal Study of Corporate Social Disclosures in a Developing Economy

By J. Mahadeo, vanisha Oogarah-Hanuman, T. Soobaroyen. 2011

152 citations recorded by the source corpus.

This article examines corporate social disclosures (CSD) in an African developing economy (Mauritius) as provided in the annual reports of listed companies from 2004 to 2007. Informed by the country’s social, political and economic context and legitimacy theory, we hypothesise that the extent and variety of CSD themes (social, ethics, environment and health and safety) will be enhanced post-2004 and will be influenced by profitability, size, leverage and industry affiliation. We find a significant increase in the volume and variety of CSD, although information in relation to social activities remains the most prominent form of disclosure. This is in contrast to previous studies which reported on the primacy of employee disclosures in developing countries. Using a pooled regression analysis, we also observe that size does explain variations in overall CSD and social disclosures, whilst leverage is positively related to changes in environmental and health and safety disclosures. There is no profitability relationship, and the effects of industry affiliation on CSD are non-significant or contrary to expectations. Overall, we assert that legitimacy, as a strategic and managerially driven approach favouring symbolic actions, is the prevailing motivation underlying the progression of CSD in Mauritius.

Subfields: Accounting, Strategy and Management

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/4c3379a3355154a7960ea69db1a322c9c3c4cac4

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Citations in the corpus

Determinants of Social Disclosure Quality in Taiwan: An Application of Stakeholder Theory (2014, methodology): “…stage of CSD development tend to attach more importance to employee relations (Chapple and Moon 2005; Khan et al. 2013), with environmental disclosure being not only brief, but also full of vague language and broad terms (Haniffa and Cooke 2005; De Villier and Van Staden 2006; Mahadeo et al. 2011).”
Governance Structures, Voluntary Disclosures and Public Accountability: The Case of UK Higher Education Institutions (2017, unknown): “In particular, public accountability, legitimacy, resource dependence and stakeholder theories have emerged (e.g., Coy et al., 1997; Coy et al., 2001; Nelson et al., 2003; Mahadeo et al., 2011; Chen and Roberts, 2010; Kang and Gray, 2011).”
Black Economic Empowerment Disclosures by South African Listed Corporations: The Influence of Ownership and Board Characteristics (2012, background): “…understanding and explaining CSR disclosures (Islam and Deegan 2008; Reverte 2009; Chen and Roberts 2010), existing studies either ex-ante rely mainly on a single theoretical framework (Cahan and Van Staden 2009; Mahadeo et al. 2011) or are largely descriptive in nature (De Villiers 1999, 2000).”
The Role of Normative CSR‐Promoting Institutions in Stimulating CSR Disclosures in Developing Countries (2018, methodology): “Furthermore, the industry’s environmental sensitivity also appears to positively influence CSR disclosure (Reverte, 2009; Mahadeo et al., 2011a).”
Corporate Governance and Performance in Socially Responsible Corporations: New Empirical Insights from a Neo‐Institutional Framework (2013, unknown): “Others have examined how general firm-level features, such as size affect CSR practices (Adams, 2002; Reverte, 2009; Mahadeo et al., 2011; Fifka, 2013), whilst a limited number of studies have explored how ownership and board characteristics influence CSR disclosures (Hillman et al., 2001;…”
Theoretical Perspectives on Corporate Social Responsibility Disclosure: A Critical Review (2015, background): “Social contract thinking has its historical precedence in Hobbes (1946), Rousseau (1968), and Locke (1986).”
Board Diversity and Corporate Social Disclosure: Evidence from Vietnam (2016, unknown): “Although CSD can vary widely across industries (Mahadeo et al. 2011), the study does not control for industry type because the business activities of most Vietnamese listed ﬁrms are conducted in multiple industry sectors, and at present there are no norms for distinct industry classiﬁcations of…”
An Analysis of Corporate Social Responsibility and Firm Performance with Moderating Effects of CEO Power and Ownership Structure: A Case Study of the Manufacturing Sector of Pakistan (2019, background): “Mainly, CSRD, measured through ﬁnancial characteristics (leverage, proﬁtability, and ﬁrm size), has been extensively described for developed countries in the literature [79–81].”
Determinants of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Disclosure in Developed and Developing Countries: A Literature Review (2017, background): “Other corporate characteristics, for example, the multiple listing of a ﬁ rm (Haniffa & Cooke, 2005), stock market listing (Monteiro & Aibar-Guzmán, 2010) and listing in social investment funds (Goncalves et al., 2014) also positively in ﬂ uenced disclosure in developing countries.”