Company characteristics and human resource disclosure in Spain

Purpose - The purpose if this paper is to investigate the determinants of corporate disclosure on human resources. Design/methodology/approach - The paper examines the extent to which 105 Spanish listed companies present information about human resources in their annual report. It distinguishes information about human capital, which includes the items about human resources usually integrated in intellectual capital, and social and ethical aspects of information about employees. A content analysis of 105 companies' annual reports was conducted. Once the information was quantified, using a regression analysis the influence certain company characteristics have on this disclosure was examined. Findings - The results confirm the impact of variables like size, type of industry and property concentration on human resource disclosure. Practical implications - The disclosure of the most competitive companies suggests that they are more concerned about employees' welfare than the rest. This may motivate a change of the disclosure policy of the rest of the firms who may follow the behavior of the most competitive ones. Originality/value - Content analysis has been carried out in some papers referring to human capital disclosure but with a descriptive character. In addition, considering different types of information about employees will permit the observation of the existence of any difference in the determinants depending on the users of this disclosure: shareholders or stakeholders (more concerned about social matters). Furthermore, using a variable to distinguish competitive companies from the rest has allowed us to see what human resources issues are relevant for competitive businesses.