Study of the firm's disclosure on corporate social responsibility

Abstract

Communicating with the stakeholders is fundamental for the companies because it allows understanding how companies are positioned in the society and develop their business. This communication process has turned to be more demanding in quantity but also quality of the information provided. Therefore, this paper aims to contribute to the literature by providing evidence of what information is disclosed on corporate social responsibility (CSR) presented in several channels of communication (annual reports, sustainability reports and website) and how these evolved over the years. It is studied the companies listed in the Euronext Lisbon for the period 2004 to 2008. The main conclusions are that companies have been disclosing more information on CSR, in all channels of communication analysed. Besides, the nature of the information disclosed has also been different over the period and the channels.