Media Coverage, Legal Environment And Social Responsibility Information Disclosure

Social responsibility theory marks the arrival of new patterns of market economy and corporate governance. Since China’s enterprise met with international practice, the supply and demand of CSR information increased rapidly. The promulgation of social responsibility guidance documents, the introduction of government policy, and the positive responses of listed companies, making CSR and its information disclosure becomes the focus of social attention and the hotspot of academic research. In recent years, with the rapid rise of media power, and the continuous exposure of social problems, such as food safety, environmental pollution, energy consumption and so on, media’s role in monitoring corporate governance can not be ignored. Law environment determines the media role of corporate governance and the implement of social related behavior of listed companies.Based on the related theory of social responsibility, this paper summarizes the existing literature of corporate governance role of media and law, social responsibility information disclosure and its influencing factors. This paper systematically studies the dynamic relationship among media coverage, legal environment and social responsibility information disclosure from different angles, to seek the functional mechanism of corporate external factors. First, this paper analyzes the descriptive statistics and Sperman correlation coefficient of each variables. Then, we verify research hypothesis by using multiple regression analysis, and analyzes the different influence of media coverage and law environment on different types companies’social responsibility information disclosures. Finally, this paper makes a robustness test by using substitution variable of CSR information and media coverage, and forecasts the economic consequences of social responsibility information disclosure.The results of empirical research show that, (1) Media coverage, especially media negative coverage has a significant positive influence on CSR information disclosure, and media attention is helpful to improve the quality of CSR report. (2) Good legal environment increases the probability of companies’social responsibility, and the level of CSR information disclosure. (3) Media supervision is more effective in better legal environment, which reflected in the enhanced quality of CSR information disclosure. (4) The nature of state-owned enterprises would promote the influence of media coverage and legal environment on CSR. (5) The fulfillment and information disclosure of CSR will not necessarily promote companies’ short-term performance, but will has a lasting impact on corporate value.Finally, according to theoretical analysis and the results of empirical research, we put forward some concrete suggestions in terms of government agencies, listed companies, and the construction of legal system.