Disclosure of Corporate Social Responsibility and Firm Performance: Evidence from India

Abstract

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has emerged as a crucial research domain over the last decade due to the imperative that when CSR activities are communicated in the form of a report, it helps in improving firm performance. Thus, the main purpose of the present study is to analyse CSR disclosure trend in India and to investigate the association between CSR and the performance of the firm from 2008–2009 to 2013–2014. Content analysis is employed using Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) framework as a base to calculate the disclosure score relating to CSR and its components, that is, human related (HR) information, society related (SO) information and product related (PR) information. Firm performance is measured by Market to Book Ratio (MBR). CSR disclosure score is found to be increasing over the study period and regarding the components of CSR, the disclosure score of SO is found to be the highest (nearly 89 per cent) followed by HR (nearly 84 per cent) and PR (nearly 83 per cent). These scores are further utilised to find the influence of CSR (including its components) on firm performance using random generalised least squares (GLS) model. The results of the regression model indicate positive and significant impact of CSR (including its components) on firm performance.