IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eme/sampjp/sampj-02-2017-0014.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Voluntary corporate social responsibility disclosure and religion

Author

Listed:
  • Paul A. Griffin
  • Estelle Y. Sun

Abstract

Purpose - This study examines the relation between voluntary corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure and the local religious norms of firms’ stakeholders. Little is known about how these local norms (measured at the county level) affect firms’ disclosure practices and firm value, especially voluntary disclosure on climate change and environmental and social responsibility. Design/methodology/approach - Poisson regression models test for a significant relation between firms’ voluntary CSR disclosure intensity and the local religious norms of firms’ stakeholders. Also, an event study tests whether the local religious norms affect investment returns. The data analyzed are extracted from the archive of CSRwire, a prominent news organization that distributes CSR news to investors and the public worldwide. Findings - The study finds that firms in high adherence (high churchgoer) locations disclose CSR activities less frequently, and firms in high affiliation (a high proportion of non-evangelical Christian churchgoers) locations disclose CSR activities more frequently. The study also finds that managers make firm-value-increasing CSR disclosure decisions that cater to the religious and social norms of the local community. Practical implications - The results imply that managers self-identify with the local religious norms of stakeholders and appropriately disclose less about CSR activities when religious adherence is high and when religious affiliation (the ratio of non-evangelicals to evangelical Christians) is low. The authors find this noteworthy because religious bodies often call for greater CSR involvement and disclosure. Yet, at the firm level, it would appear that local community religious norms also prevail, as it is shown that they significantly explain firms’ CSR disclosure behavior, implying that managers cater to local religious norms in their disclosure decisions. Social implications - The findings suggest that managers vary the timing and intensity of voluntary CSR disclosure consistent with stakeholders’ local religious and social norms and that it would be costly and inefficient if the firms were to expand CSR disclosure without considering the religious norms of their local community. Originality value - This is the first large-sample study to show that local religious norms affect CSR disclosure behavior. The study makes use of a unique and novel data set obtained exclusively from CSRwire.

Suggested Citation

  • Paul A. Griffin & Estelle Y. Sun, 2018. "Voluntary corporate social responsibility disclosure and religion," Sustainability Accounting, Management and Policy Journal, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 9(1), pages 63-94, January.
  • Handle: RePEc:eme:sampjp:sampj-02-2017-0014
    DOI: 10.1108/SAMPJ-02-2017-0014
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/SAMPJ-02-2017-0014/full/html?utm_source=repec&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=repec
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers

    File URL: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/SAMPJ-02-2017-0014/full/pdf?utm_source=repec&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=repec
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1108/SAMPJ-02-2017-0014?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Mehdi Khodakarami & Hassan Yazdifar & Alireza Faraji Khaledi & Saeed Bagheri Kheirabadi & Amin Sarlak, 2024. "The Level of Islamic Religiosity of the Local Community and Corporate Environmental Responsibility Disclosure: Evidence from Iran," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 190(2), pages 483-512, March.
    2. Manuel Bueno‐García & Gozal Ahmadova, 2024. "The influence of state ownership on environmental proactivity: An institutional perspective of international firms," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 31(3), pages 1531-1549, May.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eme:sampjp:sampj-02-2017-0014. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Emerald Support (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.