Determinants of Corporate Environmental and Social Disclosures in China: A Comparative Study within High-profile Industries

Abstract

This study examines the extent of environmental and social disclosures in annual reports made by Chinese mining, utility and chemical industries. It also investigates the key drivers of the companies’ environmental and social disclosures (CESD), thereby determining the motivations of the sample organisations towards corporate environmental and social responsibility. The study adopted dichotomous index to measure the extent of CESD among the three industries in their annual reports. Additionally, Ordinary Least Square was adopted to examine the determinants of CESD. By drawing on legitimacy theory, the results depict positive associations between the extent of CESD and firm size, profitability, and firm age. Engagement from industry association showed strong significance in environmental disclosure, whereas leverage was significant in social disclosures. Government ownership was found insignificant in the analysis. The study contributes with direct evidence to the extent of environmental disclosure and social disclosure made by three high-profile industries based on G3. The results showed that overall there is no significant difference between the extents of CESD of the three industries, indicating that high-profile industries behave similarly in terms of the content of information in disclosure. This study has also practical implications particularly for the regulatory body and the industry association when developing regulations and guidelines on environmental and social reports.