A Study On Readability Of Corporate Social Responsibility Report

In the 21st century, with the rapid development of world economy, people’s living standards improved significantly. More and more people benefit from social prosperity, but also began to focus on the problems caused by economic development. Enterprises create huge social wealth, but also bring about many negative impacts. The problems, such as environment is polluted severely, the rights and interests of employees cannot get protection and product qualities can not totally guaranteed consumers’rights and interests are infringed, make the world’s eyes focus on the social responsibility, In 1990s, the labor movement, environmental movement and other social responsibility movement in the West were booming. A number of non-governmental organizations joined to promote joint responsibility movement development. In China, with economic development and deepening of economic restructuring, there is a lot of corporate responsibility issues. Corporate social responsibility gets more unprecedented attention; the Government has extended the visible hand to social responsibility for building a harmonious society, and guide responsibility information disclosure.Domestic and international developments in corporate social responsibility are prompting a growing number of scholars into the field of social responsibility. Because of an early start, studies abroad are relatively mature. Domestic researches are almost based on the annual reports. Researches rarely refer to the social responsibility reports, especially the readability study of corporate social responsibility reports. In order to obtain the favor of investors, enterprises want to establish a good image. Under this situation, an informative and easily-understood social responsibility report is essential. So, how about the content of the social responsibility report? What is the connection and difference between the annual report and social responsibility report? What about the status of the readability? How does the impression management influence the readability of social responsibility report? These issues have a deep need to explore. This paper is divided into the following parts to study the problems above:The first chapter is mainly to introduce research background, purpose and meaning, to display main content and the frame of this paper, and to point out the main contribution and deficiencies.The second chapter is divided into two parts. The first part reviews the history of corporate social responsibility information disclosure, and points out that an independent social responsibility report has formed the trend. The second part is to comb enterprise society responsibility report development in China and analyze its present situation. Then, put forward the problems of readability existing in the report.The third chapter is base on substantial research and boundaries study to analyze the content of social responsibility report. The substantial research explores the connotation and extension of corporate social responsibility report. The boundaries study is aim to solve the linking aspects and differences of social responsibility information between annual report and corporate social responsibility report, taking the Petrol China as a case. Through comparing the social responsibility information of 2008 annual report and social responsibility report of Petrol China, the author try to provide some references to formation.The fourth chapter focuses on the study of impression management which may influence the corporate social responsibility report. The first section explains the connotation and means of impression management and reviewed the related literature. Then, the author analyzes the influence for corporate social responsibility report which is from impression management. Finally, taking the research method with multiple cases and multi-angles. There are tow cases from carefully selection:one is State Grid in China. The State Grid first released independent corporate social responsibility report among the central enterprises in China. In several times, it’s honored with the star enterprise citizen in the "golden bees" corporate social responsibility list in China. The regulations of social responsibility report in France are the most complete and distinctive one over the world, especially in a leading position among developed countries. As the lead soldier of energy industry in France, the Electricite de France has so many brilliant social responsibility activities. The author reveals the differences of impression management by comparing corporate social responsibility reports of the two big enterprises. After reading the 2007-2009 social responsibility reports of the State Grid, This chapter discuss the readability level of corporate society responsibility reports in our country and try to find the possible reason.The fifth chapter of this paper puts forward policy recommendations based on case studies conclusion. The recommendations are divided into two aspects. One is considered from the macro environment, as follows:(1) Making corporate social responsibility reporting standards. An enterprise should formulate standards which are full of general binding force by communicating with stakeholders and referencing practices of financial reports. (2) Regulatory agencies should keep "monitoring" and "service" in step. The agencies can strengthen and improve people’s responsibility consciousness through providing a certain forms of training. (3) Strengthening responsibility consciousness and reading ability of information users. Government and relevant institutions should try to popularize social responsibility idea and consciousness by publicity and training, in order to improve users’reading level. Another is about micro skills to compile report, including:(1) Report content should be fully and complete, including not only positive information but also negative one. It can help the information users make objective decisions. (2) Links exist between annals of an enterprise and its social responsibility reports. It is necessary for social responsibility reports to retain a few respects about company profile, corporate governance and business review from the annual report. (3) Moderating the length of an article, shortening sentences, reducing the unfamiliar words. (4) To enhance report readability, applying colorful pictures in writing. (5)Making the emergence of data flexible, we can use such as table, bar chart, the pie chart, etc.The main contributions and suggestions reflect in:(1)The research object is based on independent social responsibility report. Our academic circles to social responsibility mostly focus on the annual report. So the study of this paper is a front field.(2) This paper uses the method of case study with many cases and multiple angles. The whole text selects three cases, and analyzes form different aspects. Such method is not a common one in this field.(3) This paper carries on the substantive and boundaries research for the content of corporate social responsibility report. (4) This paper uses impression management theory on corporate social responsibility report, analyzing its readability. It is of a certain innovation. At present, our circles of impression management research are mostly about behavior form management layer. Specifically analyses targeted at enterprise independent social responsibility report are rarer.The deficiency mainly displays in:(1) In order to promote enterprise social responsibility report level, only select the enterprises which have good performance in the social responsibility activities, not taking a poor performance enterprise a case.(2) Because of the scarce of literature materials, the corresponding support is not firm enough.(3) The feasibility of the recommendations and suggestions has resistance. The reasons just like:enterprises have not enough active to carry out responsibilities; the government and regulatory agencies are not strongly aware of restriction and supervision of enterprise society responsibility activities.