Research On The Factors Influencing Listed Companies' Corporate Social Responsibility Report Disclosure

Shuanghui Group's "Clenbuterol" event was revealed to be a focus of public attention in March 5,2010. Product quality, food safety and quality supervision once again become a hot topic. This "Clenbuterol" event not only damaged the health and interests of consumers, but also damaged the credibility and reputation of the enterprise. It's hard to imagining that a Chinese famous brand-Shuanghui Group will be bankrupt, like the Sanlu Group, because of ignoring the ethics of corporate social responsibility. China's economy is in transition, as a member of a market economy-companies can no longer be confined to focus their economic goals, and must attach importance to their social responsibilities. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is an important practical significance topic.CSR developed lately in China, but in foreign countries already have nearly a hundred-year history. With the rapid development of the capitalist economy, environmental issues, social problems have become increasingly serious, because the company neglected social responsibility. In particular, the 60s of last century, the company press workers, pollute the environment, disregard for human rights and other acts as a community wide focus. Enterprises are facing the government, environmental groups, trade unions, the media and other pressures. In order to alleviate the contradiction between the public and protect its reputation and business interests, Western countries have begun to study CSR seriously.With economic globalization, CSR since 2000 has developed very rapidly. Competition among enterprises from simple product quality, price competition to the full responsibility for the development of competition, while public enterprises are also growing information needs of CSR. CSR report is adopted by more and more enterprises. According to the 2008 KPMG's survey,80% of the "Fortune" 250 companies issued CSR report. According to the World famous sites CorporateRegister.com,7500 companies released more than 30,000 copies of CSR report by January 2011. In the context of building a harmonious society in China, Companies and other stakeholders are interdependent and share responsibilities. Therefore, the fulfillment of CSR has become an important way to achieve sustainable development of the company.Shenzhen Stock Exchange in September 2006 issued the《Guidelines on CSR》,which required listed companies to actively committed to social responsibility and disclosed CSR report. In January 2008 the SASAC issued the《CSR of Central Enterprises)),emphasizing the central enterprises to fulfill their social responsibility and improve the social responsibility reporting system. With the government policy, to disclose corporate social responsibility reporting has become a trend for China's listed companies. However, due to late start of CSR, the theoretical research has greatly behind the practice. Therefore, in our present stage of the institutional environment, to evaluate the CSR report and explore influence factors of CSR reports disclosing is necessary for improving the CSR report and information disclosure system.This paper consists of five chapters, focusing on the influence factors of CSR Report disclosure.Chapter 1 introduces the background, purpose and significance of the study, research methods, structure and main content and the contribution of the article.Chapter 2 is the theoretical foundation and literature review. By analyzing the theory of CSR information disclosure, this paper proposes the disclosure of CSR report theoretical framework, and analysis the motives for the company disclosed CSR report:Stakeholder Theory explains the object of CSR, and also provides theoretical support for the measure of CSR; Organizational Legitimacy Theory, Principal Agent Theory and Signaling Theory explains why corporate disclosures CSR information from different perspectives. This paper reviews the domestic and foreign scholars'research and studies on the issue of CSR information disclosure, including the definition of CSR, the content of CSR information disclosure and measurement methods, and the factors of CSR information disclosure, including the internal factors and external factors.Chapter 3 is the status of CSR report disclosure. We use the index to evaluate the Listed Companies'CSR report and analyze the current situation, found that: the number of CSR reports is growth, but the quality is not satisfactory; the quality and quantity of the reports are quite different between different industries and regions; State-owned companies are far ahead of other enterprises; voluntary disclosure of CSR reports are relatively few; A serious lack of third-party certification.Chapter 4 is an Empirical Study on the factors influencing CSR Report disclosure, by using the 2009 data of listed companies. The result is that financial performance,company size,industry,financial risk,board size and regional economic development are key determinants for CSR Report disclosure, and ownership type,the proportion of independent directors and disclosure system aren't the key factors.Chapter 5 is the conclusion and advices. With the findings of the study and background of our system, this paper suggests how to improve the quality of CSR report, and establish the CSR report disclosure system, including the development of standards of CSR report; to develop and implement third-party certification; to improve the disclosure rules and regulations; to raise awareness of CSR and corporate governance; to raise the attention of stakeholders and participation.Major contributions of this paper are as follows:(1)This paper uses CSR report as a sample, and CSR report covers almost all of the CSR information, which fully reflects the CSR information disclosure.(2)The Professional CSR Report Evaluation System is more objective and comprehensive than researchers'CSR report Evaluation System.(3)This paper firstly analyzes the CSR report disclosed characteristics, and then proposes hypothesis by combination of disclosed characteristics and literature review.(4)This paper verifies not only the internal factors, but also the external factors which could influence CSR Report disclosure. This is useful and valuable for China's CSR research.