IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/corsem/v26y2019i6p1517-1529.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A cross‐national comparison of transparency signaling in corporate social responsibility reporting: The United States, South Korea, and China cases

Author

Listed:
  • Hyejoon Rim
  • Jisu Kim
  • Chuqing Dong

Abstract

In response to growing public scrutiny of ethical business practices, corporations have become actively engaged in reporting their social and environmental performances publicly. Drawing on the institutional theory to explain the growing diffusion of corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting on a global, yet distinctively specific level of adoption, this study examines the level of transparency signaling in CSR reports in three countries: the United States, South Korea, and China. In addition, within each country, the study compares the level of transparency signaling between environmentally sensitive and nonsensitive industries. Using a computer‐aided content analysis program, DICTION 7.0, the study analyzed 181 CSR reports from 2014 to 2017. Results show that the three dimensions of transparency signaling—participation, substantial information, and accountability—in CSR reports varied across different countries. Firms in the United States and South Korea showed higher scores in the participation and accountability dimensions than China, whereas firms in China showed relatively high scores in the substantial information dimension. The theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Hyejoon Rim & Jisu Kim & Chuqing Dong, 2019. "A cross‐national comparison of transparency signaling in corporate social responsibility reporting: The United States, South Korea, and China cases," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 26(6), pages 1517-1529, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:corsem:v:26:y:2019:i:6:p:1517-1529
    DOI: 10.1002/csr.1766
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/csr.1766
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/csr.1766?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Michelon, Giovanna & Pilonato, Silvia & Ricceri, Federica, 2015. "CSR reporting practices and the quality of disclosure: An empirical analysis," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 59-78.
    2. C. Christopher Baughn & Nancy L. (Dusty) Bodie & John C. McIntosh, 2007. "Corporate social and environmental responsibility in Asian countries and other geographical regions," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 14(4), pages 189-205, September.
    3. Sora Kim & Yingru Ji, 2017. "Chinese Consumers' Expectations of Corporate Communication on CSR and Sustainability," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 24(6), pages 570-588, November.
    4. Carlos Noronha & Si Tou & M. I. Cynthia & Jenny J. Guan, 2013. "Corporate Social Responsibility Reporting in China: An Overview and Comparison with Major Trends," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 20(1), pages 29-42, January.
    5. Kim, Chung Hee & Amaeshi, Kenneth & Harris, Simon & Suh, Chang-Jin, 2013. "CSR and the national institutional context: The case of South Korea," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 66(12), pages 2581-2591.
    6. Lopin Kuo & Chin‐Chen Yeh & Hui‐Cheng Yu, 2012. "Disclosure of Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management: Evidence from China," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 19(5), pages 273-287, September.
    7. Gray, Rob, 2010. "Is accounting for sustainability actually accounting for sustainability...and how would we know? An exploration of narratives of organisations and the planet," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 47-62, January.
    8. Matthias S. Fifka, 2013. "Corporate Responsibility Reporting and its Determinants in Comparative Perspective – a Review of the Empirical Literature and a Meta‐analysis," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(1), pages 1-35, January.
    9. Zhihong Wang & Tien‐Shih Hsieh & Joseph Sarkis, 2018. "CSR Performance and the Readability of CSR Reports: Too Good to be True?," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 25(1), pages 66-79, January.
    10. Roberts, Robin W., 1992. "Determinants of corporate social responsibility disclosure: An application of stakeholder theory," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 17(6), pages 595-612, August.
    11. Alexander Dahlsrud, 2008. "How corporate social responsibility is defined: an analysis of 37 definitions," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 15(1), pages 1-13, January.
    12. Lizet Quaak & Theo Aalbers & John Goedee, 2007. "Transparency of Corporate Social Responsibility in Dutch Breweries," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 76(3), pages 293-308, December.
    13. Dima Jamali & Ben Neville, 2011. "Convergence Versus Divergence of CSR in Developing Countries: An Embedded Multi-Layered Institutional Lens," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 102(4), pages 599-621, September.
    14. Belen Fernandez-Feijoo & Silvia Romero & Silvia Ruiz, 2014. "Effect of Stakeholders’ Pressure on Transparency of Sustainability Reports within the GRI Framework," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 122(1), pages 53-63, June.
    15. María D. Odriozola & Elisa Baraibar‐Diez, 2017. "Is Corporate Reputation Associated with Quality of CSR Reporting? Evidence from Spain," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 24(2), pages 121-132, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Lorena Para‐González & Carlos Mascaraque‐Ramírez & Clara Cubillas‐Para, 2020. "Maximizing performance through CSR: The mediator role of the CSR principles in the shipbuilding industry," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 27(6), pages 2804-2815, November.
    2. Lorena Para‐González & Carlos Mascaraque‐Ramírez, 2020. "The six dimensions of CSR as a driver of key results in the shipbuilding industry," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 27(2), pages 576-584, March.
    3. Felipe Lillo-Viedma & Pedro Severino-González & Valentin Santander-Ramírez & Leidy Y. García & Nataly Guiñez-Cabrera & Nicolás Astorga-Bustos, 2022. "Corporate Social Responsibility and Social Network Analysis: Unionized Workers’ Perceptions," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(7), pages 1-15, April.
    4. Yeuseung Kim, 2021. "Certified corporate social responsibility? The current state of certified and decertified B Corps," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 28(6), pages 1760-1768, November.
    5. Nicole Darnall & Hyunjung Ji & Kazuyuki Iwata & Toshi H. Arimura, 2022. "Do ESG reporting guidelines and verifications enhance firms' information disclosure?," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 29(5), pages 1214-1230, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Karaman, Abdullah S. & Orazalin, Nurlan & Uyar, Ali & Shahbaz, Muhammad, 2021. "CSR achievement, reporting, and assurance in the energy sector: Does economic development matter?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).
    2. Bargstädt, Dorothee, 2017. "Freiwillige Selbstverpflichtung von Unternehmen in Antikorruptionsinitiativen: Der Einfluss des nationalen Kontextes auf internationales Engagement am Beispiel chinesischer und indischer Unternehmen," PIPE - Papers on International Political Economy 28/2017, Free University Berlin, Center for International Political Economy.
    3. Vaz Ogando, Natalia & Ruiz Blanco, Silvia & Fernandez-Feijoo Souto, Belen, 2018. "El mercado de verificación de las memorias de sostenibilidad en España: un análisis desde la perspectiva de la demanda," Revista de Contabilidad - Spanish Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 48-62.
    4. Silvia Romero & Silvia Ruiz & Belen Fernandez‐Feijoo, 2019. "Sustainability reporting and stakeholder engagement in Spain: Different instruments, different quality," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(1), pages 221-232, January.
    5. Francesca Conte & Agostino Vollero & Claudia Covucci & Alfonso Siano, 2020. "Corporate social responsibility penetration, explicitness, and symbolic communication practices in Asia: A national business system exploration of leading firms in sustainability," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 27(3), pages 1425-1435, May.
    6. Patrycja Hąbek & Radosław Wolniak, 2016. "Assessing the quality of corporate social responsibility reports: the case of reporting practices in selected European Union member states," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 50(1), pages 399-420, January.
    7. Philipp Borgstedt & Ann-Marie Nienaber & Bernd Liesenkötter & Gerhard Schewe, 2019. "Legitimacy Strategies in Corporate Environmental Reporting: A Longitudinal Analysis of German DAX Companies’ Disclosed Objectives," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 158(1), pages 177-200, August.
    8. Balluchi, Federica & Lazzini, Arianna & Torelli, Riccardo, 2020. "Credibility of Environmental Issues in Non-Financial Mandatory Disclosure: Measurement and Determinants," OSF Preprints g73w5, Center for Open Science.
    9. Grueso Gala, Melanie & Camisón Zornoza, César, 2022. "A bibliometric analysis of the literature on non-financial information reporting: Review of the research and network visualization," Cuadernos de Gestión, Universidad del País Vasco - Instituto de Economía Aplicada a la Empresa (IEAE).
    10. Sadia Cheema & Bilal Afsar & Basheer M. Al‐Ghazali & Ahsen Maqsoom, 2020. "Retracted: How employee's perceived corporate social responsibility affects employee's pro‐environmental behaviour? The influence of organizational identification, corporate entrepreneurship, and envi," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 27(2), pages 616-629, March.
    11. José María Agudo-Valiente & Concepción Garcés-Ayerbe & Manuel Salvador-Figueras, 2017. "Corporate Social Responsibility Drivers and Barriers According to Managers’ Perception; Evidence from Spanish Firms," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(10), pages 1-24, October.
    12. Wei Yu & Ying Zheng, 2020. "The disclosure of corporate social responsibility reports and sales performance in China," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 60(2), pages 1239-1270, June.
    13. Alina Benyaminova & Martin Mathews & Paul Langley & Alison Rieple, 2019. "The impact of changes in stakeholder salience on corporate social responsibility activities in Russian energy firms: A contribution to the divergence/convergence debate," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 26(6), pages 1222-1234, November.
    14. José Luis Vázquez-Burguete & Oscar Licandro & Luis Camilo Ortigueira-Sánchez & Patricia Correa, 2024. "Do Enterprises That Publish Sustainability Reports Have a Better Developed Environmental Responsibility and Are They More Transparent?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(14), pages 1-21, July.
    15. María del Mar Miras-Rodríguez & Roberto Di Pietra, 2018. "Corporate Governance mechanisms as drivers that enhance the credibility and usefulness of CSR disclosure," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 22(3), pages 565-588, September.
    16. Clara Pérez‐Cornejo & Esther de Quevedo‐Puente & Juan Bautista Delgado‐García, 2020. "Reporting as a booster of the corporate social performance effect on corporate reputation," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 27(3), pages 1252-1263, May.
    17. Ana Nave & João Ferreira, 2019. "Corporate social responsibility strategies: Past research and future challenges," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 26(4), pages 885-901, July.
    18. Diego Pérez‐López & Ana Moreno‐Romero & Ralf Barkemeyer, 2015. "Exploring the Relationship between Sustainability Reporting and Sustainability Management Practices," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(8), pages 720-734, December.
    19. Alvaro Rojas & Daniel Lorenzo, 2021. "Environmental and Social Goals in Spanish SMEs: The Moderating Effect of Family Influence," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(4), pages 1-17, February.
    20. Hang Thi Thuy Pham & Sung-Chang Jung & Su-Yol Lee, 2020. "Governmental Ownership of Voluntary Sustainability Information Disclosure in an Emerging Economy: Evidence from Vietnam," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(16), pages 1-21, August.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:wly:corsem:v:26:y:2019:i:6:p:1517-1529. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1002/(ISSN)1535-3966 .

    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.