The Research On Information Disclosure Of Corporate Social Responsibility

A brand new concept of enterprise has been introduced in recent years: enterprises are no longer interpreted only as the tool to produce profits and make money for their runners; they are also supposed to be responsible for the political and economic development in the society. This new interpretation of enterprises is bound to change people's views on enterprises, enterprises'self evaluation and the position of enterprises in 21st century. Just as a single cell is definitely dependent on the whole organism and at the same time contributes to the development of the organism, an enterprise can never turn down the social responsibility doomed by its social characteristic. The social characteristic of an enterprise reasonably requires the sharing of social responsibilities. However, the harmonious and sustainable development of society has been threatened by some irresponsible actions of some enterprises, such as environmental pollution and conflicts between employers and employees. All these lead to strong criticism and distrust against enterprises and damage the sustainable development of them.The popularization and publication of enterprises'social responsibilities has been a new subject of research for us in China and the best solution to this task undoubtedly goes to the information disclosure of corporate social responsibility (CSR). Much research work has been done and rich achievements have been made in this regard. Research on this subject in China started relatively late and the legislation establishment concerning the information disclosure of CSR has not been achieved yet till today. What's more, though general investigations about the mode and content of information disclosure of CSR have been conducted, the in-depth and systematic theoretical research on it has always been in lack.The whole paper is based on the investigation of Chinese listed companies, the theory of stakeholder, enterprises'sustainable development theory and relevant theories of information disclosure of CSR. Joining with the standard and empirical research, the descriptive statistics about the general characteristic of information disclosure of CSR has been made. By analyzing the related data of listed companies, I mainly worked on the infection factors and values of the information disclosure of CSR as well as the comparison between the mode and the content of the information disclosure of CSR. An agreeable analysis framework of the information disclosure of CSR based on the careful studying of individual cases is expected to be established and to provide empirical evidence for the regularization of the information disclosure of CSR.Besides the lead-in section, six parts are included in this paper.Chapter one: Theoretical foundation of the information disclosure of CSR. The development from the Stockholder First Theory to the Stakeholder Theory lays a strong internal foundation for the information disclosure of CSR and the sustainable development theory of enterprises shows the right direction of the information disclosure of CSR. These two factors are hopefully supposed to explain why not only the financial achievements but also the goals of social responsibilities of enterprises are preferred to be put into consideration when the information disclosure of CSR is conducted and consequently, the material explanatory theory is made for the information disclosure of CSR. Information Asymmetry Theory imposes the compulsory duty on the information disclosure of CSR on the excuse of the inner requirement of the accounting information; the substitution theory and the signal transfer theory enable the information disclosure of CSR be willingly motivated. These two aspects together give the reasons for why the standard information disclosure of CSR has to be the combination of voluntary disclosure and compulsory disclosure. It is the mandatory explanation of the information disclosure of CSR. The above four theories are indispensably united to lay the theoretical foundation of the information disclosure of CSR. Chapter two: the history development of the information disclosure of CSR and the contrast between the domestic and foreign research. This part is looking for a suitable mode and content of the information disclosure of CSR in China through the study of the history development of the information disclosure of CSR in foreign countries with the focus on the mode and content. I think the requirements of customers, shareholders, creditors, suppliers, competitors, employees, governments, communities and so forth should all be included into the contents of the information disclosure of CSR and the related social responsibilities of the stakeholders should be disclosed. With regard to the modes of the information disclosure of CSR, various kinds of reports on enterprises'social responsibility achievements instead of the certain form are greatly recommended. Concerning the choosing between the compulsory disclosure and voluntary disclosure, I prefer the combination of the two. On one hand, the systematic research on the information disclosure of CSR is just at the initial starting, which naturally calls for the work of compulsory disclosure and at the same time the profit-making objectivity is still the dominant factor in enterprises'goals, so it is not the right occasion for the voluntary disclosure. On the other hand, the steady rise of the Social Responsibility Theory contributes greatly to the inclination of enterprises'voluntary disclosure of their social responsibility information. Putting the above situations into consideration, we should encourage the voluntary disclosure and regularize it with the compulsory disclosure.Chapter three: the construction and general characteristic analysis of the CSR disclosure index (CSRDI). Through the comparison among the various CSRDI and with regard to the practical situation of Chinese enterprises, I am trying to construct a suitable CSRDI for Chinese listed companies. The whole CSRDI is consisted of the background information of enterprises, the responsibility information for investors, creditors, managers, employees, customers, clients, environment, community and country and so on. With the employment of the CSRDI, a general descriptive statistic on the current situation of the information disclosure of CSR in different industries and items has been made. Generally speaking, the average scoring of all the model companies is 53%, with the highest 82% and the lowest 32%, which is far less than satisfied. The coming analysis on general characteristics of the current situation of the information disclosure of CSR is made on the base of the statistic figures. I find out that the lack of relevant legislation and systematic research disappoints the guarantee for the information disclosure of CSR, the ignorance of social responsibility from the enterprises themselves as well as the stakeholders spoils the motivation of the information disclosure of CSR, the unbalance between cost and benefit results in the obstacle in the practice of the information disclosure of CSR.Chapter four: research on the infective factors of information disclosure of CSR. Empirical study has been done on the infective factors of information disclosure of CSR by means of multiple regressions. It turns out that the size, achievement and business are the main infective factors of information disclosure of CSR for listed companies. The variable force of Corporate Governance didn't have remarkable effect on the information disclosure of CSR. This is mainly because that in the practical situation in china nowadays, the mechanism of the Listed Company Governance is still incomplete and doesn't have enough influence on the information disclosure of CSR of listed companies. Especially the increase of the numbers of independent directors doesn't have the power to restrict the actions of executive directors and to monitor the opportunistic behavior of the managers. Besides, the insufficient demand of the Social Responsibility Information from the pressure group also leads to the lack of desire to disclose the Social Responsibility Information for listed companies.The study also tells us that the information disclosure of CSR is still at the attempt and initiating stage, consequently the habit of providing and using the Social Responsibility Information has not been formed for enterprises and relevant stakeholders. The promotion of the information disclosure of CSR will still be the field of our further study in the future.Chapter five: the research on the evaluation of the information disclosure of CSR. The empirical study has been made on the relationship between the information disclosure of CSR and the value of the enterprise with the use of Tobin's Q to check whether the increase of the information disclosure of CSR of listed companies will raise the value of the enterprise or not. The result shows that although the"t"value between the Tobin's Q and the increase of the information disclosure of CSR is not obvious, it displays positive correlation to some extent—the listed companies adopting the active strategy of the information disclosure of CSR enjoy relatively high values, and vise versa. The empirical result demonstrates that the"fine"listed companies in china are paying more and more attention to the increase of the information disclosure of CSR and intend to communicate with the relevant stakeholders by means of the voluntary information disclosure of CSR, which has been an effective way to better the"social image"and improve the"credibility capital". The effect of the information disclosure of CSR has been more and more important.However, the indistinctive elements of the statistic also bring us some problems: At present, the targeted receivers of the information disclosure of CSR are limited to the investors; the requirements of the creditors and stakeholders are seldom considered; the information disclosure of CSR has not been widely accepted by the listed companies as the effective means to improve the image and value of them.Chapter six: The stakeholder-oriented strategy of the information disclosure of CSR. In this part, based on the individual case study, the in-depth analysis on the social responsibility report of the Sino-Pec was produced. In this case, the report is strongly stakeholder-oriented and demonstrates the relationship between the company and the various relevant stakeholders in details. So it can be a helpful model of the information disclosure of CSR for Chinese enterprises. I confidently believe that the information disclosure of CSR should be stakeholder-oriented and only by fulfilling the requirements of the stakeholders can the complete information disclosure of CSR be achieved.Based on the previous discussion, some advice on the policy-making will also be made: First, principles of the information disclosure of CSR must be established to regularize the information disclosure of CSR. Second, the accounting and confirmation of the social responsibilities should be studied to overcome the difficulties in the information disclosure of CSR. Finally, the relevant legislation aimed at the improvement of the awareness of the social responsibilities should be strengthened to legally support the information disclosure of CSR.