The Influence Of Corporate Social Responsibility Report Readability On Financial Performance

With the increasing standardization and formatting of financial information,stakeholders begin to pay close attention to non-financial information,social responsibility information is an important non financial information,it reflects the corporate social responsibility fulfillment situation,its text readability will affect stakeholders’ understanding of information content and evaluation of enterprises.Social responsibility report contains social responsibility information,and its disclosure quality will have an important impact on the financial performance of enterprises.The research samples of this thesis are listed companies in Shanghai Stock Exchange from 2017 to 2019.Guided by stakeholder theory,information asymmetry theory and signal transmission theory,this thesis defines text readability as an attribute of text itself,which will affect readers’ understanding level,reading interest,reading speed and willingness to continue reading.In this thesis,the readability index CSRR is constructed to measure the quality of disclosure of social responsibility reports,and descriptive statistical analysis is carried out.Then,empirical research is conducted on the relationship between the readability of social responsibility report and financial performance,and the moderating effects of social responsibility performance,internal control quality,disclosure system and property rights attribute are explored.Empirical analysis shows that corporate social responsibility report readability has a significant positive impact on financial performance.Social responsibility performance,internal control quality,voluntary disclosure system and state-owned enterprise property rights have a positive moderating effect on the relationship between corporate social responsibility report readability and financial performance.Finally,based on the empirical test to support the hypothesis,this thesis proposes that enterprises should improve the readability of social responsibility report,actively fulfill social responsibility,improve the quality of internal control,and regulators should encourage enterprises to voluntarily disclose social responsibility report.