Research On The Influential Factors Of The Corporate Social Responsibility Report Assurance And Information Content

In recent years,with the development of China's listed companies,more and more of them choose to disclose the non-financial corporate social responsibility(CSR)report.According to the related statistics,a total number of 2416 listed companies had disclosed their CSR reports from 2011 to 2014.But there were only 113 companies had their reports assured by a third-party.As more reports are being disclosed,the public showed their concern about the assurance of the disclosed reports from these companies.Our current research in this field is focused on the normative research,there are very few positive researches conducted in this field.So,how can we determine if the published CSR reports are true and reliable? And what are the factors that influence the verification of the corporation social responsibility report? Is there any substantial information content in the social responsibility report verification disclosed by the corporation? These are the problems needed to be solved by using the positive research.So,this paper uses these issues as the starting point to do a further research on the phenomenon that the companies are disclosing their CSR repots and having them assured.To study these issues,the author has chosen the CSR reports that are released by the listed companies in Shenzhen and Shanghai from2011 to 2014 as samples to study the factors of the CSR reports' authenticity,using Logistic data regression as the analytical tool.The author will also apply the principal-agent theory,stakeholder theory and signaling theory in this paper.There will be five aspects concerning the study: corporate characteristics,the way of disclosure,the quality of thedisclosure,corporate governance and types of auditors.According to the study,the author has come to a conclusion that of all the influential factors,the size of the board,the size of the corporate,the quality of disclosure and types of auditors would play a role in whether the assurance of the reports should be conducted.It also shows that the bigger the corporate is,the bigger the board is,the higher the disclosure quality is and the better annual auditors they have,preferably the top ten,the more likely they would have their CSR reports authenticated.And apart from this,although the number of the authenticated reports is increasing,whether it has a corresponding market reaction or not remains unknown.The author has used 436 listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen which have released the CSR reports as samples and conducted the positive research on them,and the author has come to the conclusion that there is a positive correlation between the CSR reports and the market,thus assuring SCR reports has a market reaction.The signaling theory and event study method are used in the positive research.Finally,based on the current state of the CSR reports' assurance,the national situation of China,institutional background,theoretical analysis and positive research,the author has come up with some suggestions on the related policies and also pointed out some limitations of in this paper from the perspectives of the government,the corporate and social organizations.