Determinants of Animal Welfare Disclosure Practices: Evidence from China

Yanqi Sun, Pui San Ip, Michael Jones, Jenny Jing Wang and Yi An
Additional contact information
Yanqi Sun: Waikato Management School, University of Waikato, Hamilton 3240, New Zealand
Pui San Ip: Junta de Serviços Médicos no Exterior, Health Bureau, Macao SAR 999078, China
Michael Jones: Department of Accounting and Finance, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1TN, UK
Jenny Jing Wang: School of Accounting, Economics and Finance, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW 2522, Australia
Yi An: College of Management, Ocean University of China, Qingdao 266100, China

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 4, 1-16

Abstract: Public awareness of farm animal welfare has been growing. However, the animal welfare disclosure, as an important element of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) reporting, has not been sufficiently explored. This paper investigates animal welfare disclosure practices as well as the determinants of animal welfare disclosure practices of 2019 corporate reports using a sample of Chinese A-share listed food firms. Content analysis of corporate reports is employed for exploring animal welfare disclosure practices and an animal welfare disclosure index is adopted as the instrument for content analysis. The analysis reveals that animal welfare reporting is still in its embryonic stage in China. It is further found that firm size, board size, and board independence positively affects animal welfare disclosure practices, while CEO duality has a negative impact. As the first to examine the determinants of animal welfare disclosure practices, this paper would have some implications for academics, practitioners, and policymakers.

Keywords: animal welfare; disclosures; farm animals; food companies; CSR; China (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 (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/4/2200/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/4/2200/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:4:p:2200-:d:501533

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().