The absence of corporate social responsibility reporting in Bangladesh

Ataur Rahman Belal and Stuart Cooper

CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, 2011, vol. 22, issue 7, 654-667

Abstract: This paper aims to broaden the present corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting literature by extending its focus to the absence of CSR reporting within a developing country, an area which, to date, is relatively under researched in comparison to the more widely studied presence of CSR reporting within developed Western countries. In particular this paper concentrates upon the lack of disclosure on three particular eco-justice issues: child labour, equal opportunities and poverty alleviation. We examine why this is the case and thereby illuminate underlying motives behind corporate unwillingness to address these issues. For this purpose, 23 semi-structured interviews were undertaken with senior corporate managers in Bangladesh. The findings suggest that the main reasons for non-disclosure include lack of resources, the profit imperative, lack of legal requirements, lack of knowledge/awareness, poor performance and the fear of bad publicity. Given these findings the paper raises some serious concerns as to why corporations would ever be expected to voluntarily report on eco-justice issues where performance is poor and negative publicity would be generated and profit impaired. Further research is still required to uncover current injustices and to imagine what changes can be made.

Keywords: Absence; CSR reporting; Eco-justice issues; Bangladesh (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (57)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1045235411000311
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

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:eee:crpeac:v:22:y:2011:i:7:p:654-667

DOI: 10.1016/j.cpa.2010.06.020

Access Statistics for this article

CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING is currently edited by Marcia Annisette, Christine Cooper and Yves Gendron

More articles in CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().