Trends in Corporate Social Responsibility Reporting. The Case of Chinese Listed Companies

Xiaojuan Wu and Patrycja Hąbek
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Xiaojuan Wu: Department of Business Administration, Faculty of Economics, Technical University of Ostrava, 702 00 Ostrava, Czech Republic
Patrycja Hąbek: Faculty of Organization and Management, Silesian University of Technology, 41-800 Zabrze, Poland

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 15, 1-16

Abstract: Compared with Western developed countries, corporate social responsibility (CSR) implementation in China started relatively late, but so far, its development has been going on for more than ten years. Therefore, the development process of CSR reporting as a vital tool to reflect the CSR related information of Chinese listed companies is worth studying. It has been asserted in a large amount of literature that the government of a country has an important influence on the development of CSR reporting. Thus, in this paper, we aim to study the trends in CSR reporting practices of Chinese listed companies through statistical analysis methods and then consider the role of the government in it. The results show that the number of CSR reports issued by Chinese listed companies has increased year by year; notably, the number of voluntary CSR disclosure and environmental information disclosure has increased significantly. However, the overall disclosure rate of CSR reports is low and shows no upward trend, the published CSR reports lack third-party certification, and the information disclosure level of most CSR reports is concentrated at a relatively low level. The findings provide some useful references for the future development of Chinese CSR related laws, regulations, and guidelines.

Keywords: CSR report; Chinese listed companies; environmental information; government role; voluntary disclosure; regulations (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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