The voluntary CSR disclosure in corporate annual reports: Evidence from Australia

Abstract

The relationship between credible Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) performance and desirable firm outcomes is well established in corporate governance literature. Over the past two decades in particular, there has been an increased recognition of this relationship in the business community and a concomitant increase in the quantity and detail of CSR activities being voluntarily reported by corporations has been observed. The rationale for the increasing levels of voluntary CSR reporting has been attributed to two main corporate strategies: to conform to the expectations of the society and to socially legitimise their operations to their salient stakeholder groups. Whilst there has been extensive academic interest in the concept of CSR, it has focused almost exclusively on normative definitions of the concept, and/or the presentation of empirical evidence that details „why corporations should report their CSR activities‟ and „what CSR activities they should report‟. What is lacking the literature, however, is a focus on the question as to „how do corporations strategically report their CSR activities?‟ We find that there is evidence to support a „Core/Periphery Model‟ of strategic CSR disclosure, which we feel provides a framework for predicting how corporations will voluntarily disclose their CSR performance given the issues, events and/or crises that affect their industry environments.