Effects of corporate governance on the decision to voluntarily disclose corporate social responsibility reports: evidence from China

ABSTRACT

This article investigates effects of corporate governance on the decision to voluntarily disclose corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports. By using a unique longitude data set of Chinese publicly traded manufacturing firms from 2010 to 2016, this study finds that ownership structure and board characteristics are significantly associated with firms’ decisions to voluntarily disclose CSR reports. In particular, our study finds that state ownership, institutional ownership, managerial ownership and board size are positively and significantly associated with the decision to voluntarily disclose CSR reports. However, board independence is not related to the decision. We also find CEO duality is negatively and significantly related to the decision. Our findings highlight the role of corporate governance in firms’ transparency by influencing the voluntary disclosure of additional information on firms’ CSR activities.

KEYWORDS:

• Corporate social responsibility
• corporate governance
• voluntary disclosure
• ownership structure
• board characteristics

JEL CLASSIFICATION:

• G34
• M14
• M40

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities [No. 2018BSXM16] and China Postdoctoral Science Foundation [No. 2019M652916].