Corporate social responsibility reporting and institutional theory

Abstract

Purpose: Research on disclosure of sustainability information has focused on the level of firms, and very few works analyze the differences between countries.  The objective is to identify the factors that explain the differences in the provision of sustainability information at a macroeconomic level.

Design/methodology: The sample includes 9.570 reports drawn up within the framework of the Global Reporting Initiative in 53 countries in the period 2007-2012. Information for each country has been standardized by a million inhabitants every year. Multiple regression models have been used to study the incidence of governance, culture and globalization.  

Findings:  It has been detected that indicators of the World Bank’s governance, the proportion of seats for women in national parliaments and foreign direct investment explain significantly the provision of sustainability information in all analyzed countries. There are differences when the sample is broken down into developed and developing countries.

Research limitations/implications: The use of macroeconomic variables that show strong correlations between each other prevents from including all the institutional factors that may affect the organizations’ behavior.

Practical implications: Organizations are facing the coercive isomorphism, so their performance in the emission of corporate social responsibility information is explained mainly by the pressure of formal and informal institutions.

Originality/value: Evidence of the importance of institutional factors in the emission of sustainable information is presented.