Corporate Environmental Disclosure in De

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Corporate Environmental Disclosure inDeveloping Countries: Evidence from

Bangladesh

Dr. Monirul Alam Hossain,

Email: [email protected]


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Bangladesh

Abstract

This is an exploratory study designed to investigate the extent and nature of environmental

reporting in corporate annual reports (CARs) and to examine the likely relationship between

the extent of environmental disclosure and several corporate attributes in a developing

country, Bangladesh. A disclosure index comprising twenty items of environmental

information has been developed those are expected to be disclosed in CARs. A sample of

CARs of 82 companies listed on Dhaka Stock Exchange was analysed. This study reports that

a very few companies in Bangladesh are making efforts to provide environmental information

on a voluntary basis, which are qualitative in nature. It was found that the relation between

extent of environmental disclosure and the size of the company has a positive significant

relationship. However, the extent of environmental disclosure was negatively associated with

the subsidiary of multinational company variable. The reasons behind poor disclosure of

environmental disclosure are that the environment protection groups and general public apply

lesser pressure to the companies in Bangladesh and there is a lack of environmental

legislation compelling companies to disclose such information in CARs.

Key Words: Environment Disclosure, Company Characteristics, Corporate Annual Reports,

Social Reporting, Social Accounting, Developing Countries, Bangladesh.


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Bangladesh

1.1 Introduction

During the last twenty years, corporate social and environmental reporting became an issue of

interest of researchers. In the decade of 1980, the focus switched over from corporate social

disclosure to corporate disclosure and reporting of environmental information and the trend

continued in the 1990s as well as beyond. Historical events, such as Exxon Valdez oil spill in

Alaska (Patten, 1992) and the Union Carbide gas leak in India (Blacconiere and Patten,

1994), shows that a firm’s activities can have significant impact on the environment.

Environmental disclosure as well as philosophical discussions on environmental accounting

dominated the financial research agenda during 1990s (Belal, 1999). Social performance

information, social audit, social accounting, socio-economic accounting, social responsibility

accounting and social and environmental reporting have been used interchangeably in the

literature. Corporate environmental disclosure is a part of social reporting and the

environmental disclosures are mainly non-financial in nature. The extant literature on

corporate disclosure focuses on the determinants of voluntary disclosure and on the effect of

voluntary disclosures on return-earnings relation (see e.g., Healy and Palepu 2001; Lundholm

and Myers 2002). However, there is a paucity of specific studies regarding Corporate

Environmental Disclosures (CEDs) both in developed and developing countries.

Survey and anecdotal evidence show that corporation are disclosing environment information

in corporate annual reports and has an increase trend over years. It has been argued by the

researchers that the level of Corporate Environmental Disclosure is dependent on several

corporate attributes and there are studies which empirically examine the extent of


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environmental disclosure and measure the relationship between environment disclosure and

several corporate attributes However, most of these studies are concerned with developed

countries (e.g. Europe, Singapore, South Africa and USA). Very few of these studies could

be found in the contact of developing countries (e.g. Korea, Singapore and India) and no such

study has been carried out with special reference to Bangladesh.

It has been argued that corporate environmental disclosure may not apply universally to all

countries which are in various stages of economic development and with corporations having

differing levels of awareness and attitudes towards corporate environmental disclosure.

However as economies grow and outlook become more global, we are likely to see an

increasing convergence in corporate environmental disclosure practices (Ismail and Koh,

1999). Bangladesh has not been experiencing rapid economic growth since its inception in

1971 although a number of industries have been established at an accelerated rate and there is

a demand for a cleaner environment. There are few cases of river pollution caused by a fluent

discharged by some companies in Bangladesh in the recent year which caused even greater

concern about the undesirable environmental outcomes of unregulated development.

However, there is no pressure from private pressure group in Bangladesh in this regard. In

Korea, there are pressure groups which includes the Basic Environment Policy Act of 1990,

the Liability for Environment Improvement Expenses act of 1991, the Environmental

Pollution Damage Dispute Adjustment Act of 1990 and the Natural Environmental

Preservation Act of 1991 (Choi, 1998). The Government of Bangladesh has promulgated an

Act entitled Environment Protection Act 1995.

Corporate awareness of its environmental disclosure can only intensify in the future and there

has also been increasing pressures from government and outside parties for corporations to


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assume greater accountability for their impact on society in general (Ismail and Koh, 1999).

Corporate environmental disclosure is a voluntary disclosure in most of the developing

countries with no guidelines available in the accounting standards or recommendations of the

IASC member countries (Ismail and Koh, 1999). There are many empirical researches on

corporate environmental disclosure in different countries of the world. Most of these studies

belong to developed countries, and a very few can be found covering developing countries.

Corporate environmental disclosure is more prevalent in the United States of America and in

the United Kingdom but less so in Asian countries. Although this paper deals with the

measurement of the extent of corporate environmental disclosure (CED) in Bangladesh, it

will be necessary to place CED in the context of the broader corporate social reporting

discourse. The researcher tries to find out the what is the nature of environmental reporting in

Bangladesh, to what extent the companies are disclosing environmental information, What

factors are responsible for the disclosure or non-disclosure of such environmental disclosure.

The next section provides an overview of the corporate environmental issues including

related prior research. The sample of firms and the methodology employed and discussed in

section three, where a systematic method for quantifying the content of environmental

disclosures made by the companies is developed. Results of both the measured content and

the statistical analyses are presented in section four. Section five of this study contains a

general discussion on the results, followed by a summary and conclusions. The implications

for Bangladeshi environmental accounting policies, recommendation for future research and

limitations of the study are also discussed.


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2.1 Literature Review

Social and environmental disclosure can be referred to as accounting and reporting. However,

there controversy among researchers regarding the underlying needs of such social and

environmental disclosure and reporting in the content of developing countries and there is

lack of agreement and no universally theoretical framework for corporate social and

environmental accounting. Three types of literature can be found in the area of environmental

accounting based on three types of theories – decision usefulness studies, economic theory

studies, and social and political theory studies. Different kinds of competing theoretical

arguments have different justifications as to why companies should and do disclose social

and environmental information in their corporate annual reports. However, there are serious

doubts as to whether the empirical evidence available is enough to establish the superiority of

any of these theoretical perspectives (Hackston and Milne, 1995).

The basic argument for the decision usefulness approach is that companies release

information on their environmental activities because of the traditional user groups mostly.

Shareholders and creditors find it useful for their investment making (Choi, 1998). Economic

theory approach is based upon ‘agency theory’ which implies that in order to avoid potential

pressure from governmental regulatory bodies which enforce corporate social and

environmental responsibility, companies increase corporate social and environmental

disclosure. Government regulation has been considered as costly and restrictive on business

decision making. These restrictions adversely affect a firm’s wealth by imposing political

costs of reduced flexibility in the adoption of potentially profit maximisation policies of a

firm (Watts and Zimmerman, 1986) and as a result, the large corporations respond by

employing a number of devices including environmental disclosure campaigns to encounter

these governmental interventions (Choi, 1998).


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There are some studies regarding social responsibility disclosure in developed countries.

However, in the developing countries, a few studies which measured the extent of Corporate

Social and Environmental Disclosure. In 1976, Belkaoui tried to find out the problem of

pollution control in association with share price on 50 companies in USA. His study tends to

show that there was a significant relationship between the pollution and the share price of the

sample US companies. Soon after the study of Belkaoui (1976), Spicer (1978) carried on a

study where he examined the possible/likely association between pollution control and

several corporate attributes. The corporate attributes were profitability, price earning

multiples, size, and total and systematic risk. His sample consisted only 78 US listed

companies. Spicer (1978) found that larger companies have better pollution control records

than smaller firms. Further, his study tends to show that the companies with higher

profitability, larger in size, lower total and systematic risk and higher price-earnings multiples

have better pollution disclosure.

Halme and Huse (1997) examine the influence of corporate governance on voluntary

disclosure of environmental accounting. They find that managerial ownership and the

composition of board of directors are significantly related to the level of environmental

disclosures. Further they investigate the differences of disclosures between firms which had

been rated good, mixed or poor in their environmental activities and find that ‘poor firms’

made significantly more disclosures within both the notes and the Management Discussion

and Analysis (MD & A). They conclude that a firm’s strategies play an important role in

environmental disclosure.

Singh and Ahuja (1983) examined annual reports of 40 public sector companies to measure

empirically the extent of social responsibility disclosure (environmental disclosure was a part


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of the study) and try to establish relationship between the extent of social responsibility

disclosure and several corporate characteristics (size, profitability, age and nature of

industry). Their result showed that there was a significant variation between companies in

relation to social disclosure. They found that the age of the company does not have a

significant influence on social disclosure. However, they found that total assets, the earnings

margin, and nature of the study are significantly associated with the level of social disclosure.

Cowen, Ferreri and Parker (1987) measured corporate responsibility disclosure (corporate

environmental disclosure was a part of it) made by 134 companies in the USA. They sub-

divided social responsibility disclosure in six categories where environment and energy were

two important categories. They measured the association between social responsibility

disclosure and a number of company characteristics (viz., size, profitability, industry type and

presence of a social responsibility committee). Their results showed that there was a

significant relationship between corporate size and environment, energy, fair business

practice, and community involvement.

Porwal and Sharma (1991) empirically examined the state of social reporting in India. A

sample of 147 companies was selected. They developed a weighted disclosure index

comprising 47 items of social disclosure information as against each annual report of the

sample company. They found that 46% of the Indian companies made some sort of social

disclosure in their annual report. The extent of social disclosure seems to be higher from the

view point of a developing country. However, this level of disclosure could be the selection

of larger companies only and can not be said to be representative for the Indian companies.

They also reported that the disclosure of social information was made mainly through the

directors’ report and Notes/Schedules to financial statements of which forty two percent


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relied on Notes/Schedules and 40% disclose social information in the directors’ report.

Porwal and Sharma (1991) also reported that forty five percent of the companies made

quantitative disclosure and rest used qualitative disclosure.

Doppegieter and De Villiers (1996) found that companies in energy sector disclose more

environmental information than the average, evidence that industry differences are also

experienced in South Africa. In the 1998, De Villiers conducted another survey among the

three groups covered in the study of De Villiers and Vorster (1995). De Villiers and Vorster

(1995) conducted a survey among managers, auditors and users of corporate annual reports.

62% users found to positive regarding more environmental disclosure corporate in nature as

compared to 49% manager and 48% auditors taken part in the survey. Regarding specific

environmental disclosures 75% of the sample users on an average found to be positive as

compared to 56% and 57% of the sample managers and auditors under study.

A survey conducted by Gamble et al (1995) tends to show that there are differences between

industries and there is a tendency of an exercise in the level of environmental disclosures

over time. They commented that the quality of environmental reporting was lower in general

and they concluded that the information needs of stakeholders were not adequately covered in

the CARs. Gray et al (1995) in their study commented that these type of studies are

unsystematic, related to the company size, industry type, country of reporting and ownership,

and to capital intensity, age of corporation, strategic posture, senior executive attitudes and

the existence of a social responsibility committee. However, they found CSD is not related to

profitability. Gray et al (1995) found that the quality of environmental disclosure was,

“generally low” and argued that the information needs of stakeholders were not covered


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adequately. Subsequent researchers’ evidence tends to show the results are consistent with

Gray et al (1995).

Deegan and Gordon (1996) found that the amount of voluntary environmental

information in Australia is generally low. They also found that the nature of environmental

disclosures is self-laudatory and the amount of environmental information increased

overtime. Their evidence tends to show that the companies in environmentally sensitive

industries are more likely to report on environmental issues, and firm size has an influence on

the amount of disclosure.

KPMG made two surveys (1997a and 1997b) in various countries over the last few years. The

results for the top 100 UK companies tend to indicate an increase in the extent of

environmental disclosure over the years (78% in 1997) although quantifiable targets are only

provide by 18% sample companies. KPMG (1997b) results showed that 71% of the sample

companies disclose environmental information in their CARs. The study found significant

differences in environmental information reporting between industries and the majority of the

disclosed information covers the liabilities and future commitments for site restoration. In

addition, they also reported with empirical evidence that there is a difference in the level of

environmental reporting between sample countries.

Eken (1998) reported of an empirical study describing the degree and manner of

environmental disclosures in the 1996 annual reports of 72 largest Dutch companies. They

constructed an environmental disclosure index comprising twenty items under four different

categories: accounting and financial disclosures, environmental litigation disclosures,

environmental pollution abatement disclosures and other disclosures. He found that 65%


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companies under study provide environmental disclosures. All the reporting sample

companies providing environmental disclosures include environmental information in the

executive directors’ report. In addition 32% sample companies provide environmental

disclosures in the financial statements and in the form of notes.

Belal (1999) measured the extent of corporate social disclosure (which includes environment

disclosure) made by companies in a developing country, Bangladesh. His sample consisted of

30 companies. His sample reflected listed companies of which 6 were subsidiaries of MNCs,

7 listed public sector companies. He further stated that 80% companies did not disclose any

environmental information. In some cases, companies voluntarily disclose information

regarding tree plantations. He found that social disclosures are made in notes to accounts,

chairman’s statement, and directors’ report and in some often parts of annual report. He

concluded that most cases the quantity and quality of disclosures made were unsatisfactory

and poor.

3.1 Research Design

This section deals with selection of sample companies, construction of social and

environmental disclosure index (EDI), scoring scheme of the environmental information

comprising EDI and development of a regression model to measure the relationship between

the extent of corporate environmental disclosure and several corporate attributes.

3.1.1 Sample

The sample covers the annual reports of companies for the year 2002-2003. The sample

represents the whole population of the non-financial companies listed on the Dhaka Stock

Exchange. The planned size of the sample represented approximately 150 companies. The


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researcher collected the address books of companies listed on the Dhaka Stock Exchange

(DSE). Out of 150 companies, the corporate annual reports of 75 non-financial companies

were collected directly from the companies of which 6 companies are multinationals. Data for

evaluating social and environmental information were extract from corporate annual reports

of the sample listed companies.

3.2.1 Information Items Included in the Social andEnvironmental Disclosure Index

Disclosure Index Approach has been used to provide an evaluation of the social and

environmental disclosure in CARs. There is a problem as to the measurement of corporate

social and environmental disclosure. The major task of the present research is to develop a

suitable disclosure index comprising items of social and environmental information that are

expected to be disclosed in corporate annual report from the view point of developing

countries. There is no generally accepted theory to predict users information needs and there

is an absence of an appropriate generally accepted model for the selection of the items of

social and environmental information to be included in a disclosure index. The items of

environmental information included in the disclosure were selected from the study of

Wiseman (1992), Porwal and Sharma (1991), and Singh,and Ahuja (1983) which were

considered essential for complete environmental disclosure. The list of these environmental

disclosure information can be found as Appendix A.

To summarize, the items of social and environmental information included in the social and

environmental disclosure index have been developed based on the following criteria:

i) Items of social and environmental information commonly required by the statutes in

Bangladesh.


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ii) Disclosure items identified in other studies examining disclosure in Bangladesh (if

any) used the social and environmental disclosure index methodology.

iii)

Disclosure indices generally used in developing countries other than Bangladesh (e.g.,

Porwal and Sharma (1991) and Singh,and Ahuja (1983).

iv)

Disclosure indices generally used in developed countries (e.g., Wiseman, 1992).

The disclosure index constructed for this study included 60 items which were used in

environmental index formulations.

3.2.1 Scoring in the Social and Environmental DisclosureIndex

There are various approaches available to develop a scoring scheme to determine the disclosure

level of corporate annual reports from the works of other researchers. Among the alternative

approaches, unweighted disclosure index approach has been used to measure the extent of

disclosure of social and environmental information where an item scores one if disclosed and

zero if not disclosed. An unweighted social and environmental index is the ratio of the value of

the number of items a company discloses divided by total value that it could disclose. Under an

unweighted social and environmental disclosure index, all items of information in the index are

considered equally important to the average user.

In the unweighted social and environmental disclosure index disclosure of individual items has

been treated as a dichotomous variable. Here, the only consideration is whether or not a

company discloses an item of social and environmental information in its corporate annual

report. If a company discloses an item of social and environmental information in its annual

report it will be awarded `1' and if not it will be awarded `0'. The disclosure model for the

unweighted social and environmental disclosure thus measures the total disclosure (TD) score

for a company as additive as follows:


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TD= dii

n

=

∑1

Where,

d = 1 if the item di is disclosed

0 if the item di is not disclosed

n = number of items

3.3.1 The Dependent Variables, Explanatory Variables andHypotheses

The dependent variable used in this study is Social and Environmental Disclosure Index

(EDI) and the disclosure index has been calculated for each of the companies studied. The

explanatory variables used in the study have taken into the account previous studies

undertaken by other researchers. The corporate attributes considered are size (proxied by

sales and assets), profitability (proxied by rate of return on assets and net profit margin),

multinationality (subsidiaries of the multinational companies), industry type, and

international link of the audit firm. The following paragraphs provide a rationale for taking

into consideration the corporate variables chosen as explanatory variables:

1. Size of the company

There are several studies which have been found that a significant positive association

between the size of the company and the extent of corporate social and environmental

disclosure in the corporate annual report in both developed and developing countries.

However, other researchers like Roberts (1992), Ng (1985) and Davey (1982) found that the

size of the company did not significantly explain an association with the level of corporate

social and environmental disclosure and its variability.


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Larger companies may be hypothesised to disclose corporate social and environmental

information in their company annual reports than smaller companies for a variety of reasons.

According to the Agency Theory, social responsibility disclosure campaigns can be used to

reduce political costs, which in turn, could reduce wealth of a firm. As the magnitude of

political costs is highly dependent on firm size, it is inferred that there will be a positive size

and corporate social and environmental disclosure relationship. There are several measures of

size available (e.g., number of employees, total asset value, sales volume, etc.). However,

these three proxies for size are highly correlated. In this study, sales turnover and total assets

will be used as the measures of company size. These two variables were lebelled as ASSETS

and SALES. The following specific hypotheses have been tested regarding size of the firm:

H 1(a): firms with greater total assets disclose social and environmental information to a

greater extent than do those firms with fewer total assets.

H 1(b): firms with greater sales turnover disclose social and environmental information to a

greater extent than do those firms with lower sales turnover.

2. Profitability or Corporate Financial Performance

Profitability as well as corporate financial performance was used by a number of researchers

as an explanatory variable for differences in disclosure level. However, the relationship

between corporate financial performance and corporate social and environmental disclosure is

arguably one of the most controversial issues yet to be solved (Choi, 1998). The proponents

argue that there are additional costs associated with the social and environmental disclosure

and, the profitability of the reporting company is depressed.

The results of different studies measuring the relationship between corporate financial

performance and corporate social and environmental disclosure show mixed results. Among

these researchers found a positive association between profitability and the extent of


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corporate social and environmental disclosure (Waddock and Gravess, 1997) whereas Cowen

et. al (1987) found no association between the variables. Again, the results Belkaoui and

Kirkpik (1989) tend to be more intriguing. They showed a significantly pair-wise correlation,

yet an insignificant negative regression co-efficient for return on assets and corporate social

and environmental disclosure. There are researchers those used log of profits and among

these researchers, Roberts (1992) has found a positive relationship between profitability level

of a company and social and corporate environmental disclosure. However, Patten (1992)

fails to find any significant positive relationship between profitability and social and

corporate environmental disclosure.

For profitable companies if the rate of return or return on investment is more than the

industry average, the management of a company has an incentive to communicate more

information (including social and environmental information) which is favourable to it as the

basis of explanations of good news and is likely to disclose environmental information in

their corporate annual reports as a result. In the present study, net profit to sales and rate of

return on assets have been used as the measures of profitability. These two variables are

15abeled as NPMARGIN and ROASSETS. The following specific hypotheses have been

tested regarding profitability:

H 2(a) : firms with higher net profit to sales disclose social and environmental information to a

greater extent than do those firms with lower net profit to sales ratios.

H 2(b): firms with higher rates of return on assets disclose social and environmental

information to a greater extent than do those firms with lower rates of return on assets.

3. Subsidiaries of Multinational Company

The subsidiaries in developing countries of parent multinational companies from developed

countries are likely to disclose social and environmental information than their local

counterparts. The parent companies of these multinationals’ subsidiaries usually operate their


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businesses in developed countries where these parent MNCs in many cases disclose

environmental information in their CARs. Again, it has been argued that the political costs

for these subsidiaries may be more in developing countries than in developed countries and

subsidiaries of multinational companies in developing countries may be considered as

significant in the economies of their host countries and such companies may risk the threat of

government control, even the threat including 16abeled16ization. A dichotomous variable

labeled as MNCS was used with the value of ‘1’ if the company was a subsidiary of a

multinational parent, and ‘0’ otherwise. The following specific hypothesis has been tested

regarding the multinationality:

H 3: firms with the mutinationality connections (subsidiaries of multinational companies)

disclose social and environmental information to a greater extent than do with those of

their domestic counterparts.

4. Audit firm

Several studies have examined empirically the relation between the characteristics of the

audit firm (size of audit firm or international link of the auditing firm) and the extent of social

and environmental disclosure and found positive association between the audit firm size and

the level of disclosure. It is believed to be an important responsibility of auditors to

recommend their client companies to practice socially responsible accounting practices

(Choi, 1998). It is hypothesized that companies under the contract with larger audit firms are

likely to disclose more social and environmental information. This variable is a dummy

variable and labeled as INLINK, and is used in the regression and correlation analyses, ‘1’

for larger domestic audit firms or audit firms having international link with audit firms

including, otherwise a ‘0’. The following specific hypothesis has been tested regarding the

audit firm size or international link of the audit firm:

H 5 : firms that engage international audit firms or larger domestic audit firms disclose social

and environmental information to a greater extent than do those firms that engage

domestic audit firms.


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5. Industry Type

Industry type has been used by a very few number of researchers as an explanatory variable

for differences in disclosure level. This study divides industries into two categories (viz.,

manufacturing and non-manufacturing) for the purpose of analysis. The companies belong to

manufacturing industries were assigned ‘1’, otherwise ‘0’. The following specific hypotheses

will be tested regarding industry type:

H 5 : firms falling with in a specific industry type disclose different amounts of social and

environmental information than do those firms falling with in other industry types.

3.4.1 Multiple Regression Models

Multiple linear regression techniques are used to test hypotheses. The model is created one

using UADI.

SEDI= α + β1 ROASSETS + β2 NPMARGIN + β3 MULTICOM + β4 INDUTYPE

+ β5 SALES + β6 INLINK + β7 ASSETS + β8 AGE + ε .................(1.1)

Where,

SEDI = total score received each sample company under social and environmental

disclosure index;

α = the constant, and

ε = the error term.

The description of the ten independent variables, their labels and expected signs and

relationships are present in Table 1.

Insert Table 1 about here


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4.1 Results of the Study

The results of the study are presented in three sections. In the first section, the nature and

extent of the corporate social and environmental disclosure has been analysed and discussed.

The second section focussed on the discussion on multivariate analysis of correlation co-

efficient and results of multiple regression model of the corporate social and environmental

disclosure and six corporate attributes are presented in the third section. Spearman Rank

Correlation Co-efficient, and Ordinary Least Square (OLS) regression were used to test the

hypotheses of the study.

4.1.1 Analysis of the Environmental Disclosure Made by theSample Companies

It is interesting that the sample companies who reported that they have invested money in

purchasing equipment for environment control (e.g., effluent treatment plant). However, a

careful review of the annual reports of these companies confirmed that these companies

actually did not disclose whether they have bought such components and the cost associated

with environment control. Again, “Past and current operating costs of pollution control

equipment and facilities” was disclosed by two companies and a scrutiny of the profit and

loss statement of the companies in CARs along with notes to accounts did not provide any

information regarding this. As a result, in any of the cases, the companies under study did not

provide quantitative information as to the environmental items in their CARs which is

consistent with the findings of Belal (1999). It has found that there are some environmental

information which were not disclosed by any of the sample companies under study. The

environmental information not disclosed by the sample companies are presented in Table 2.



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It has also found that there are some environmental information which were disclosed by the

sample companies under study. The environmental information disclosed by the sample

companies are presented in Table 3.


In the methodology section, the researchers argued that the subsidiaries of MNCs disclose

environmental information in their CARs with supportive justifications why these MNCs

should disclose environmental information in CARs. However, this study reports that there is

empirical evidence that no one of these subsidiaries of MNCs disclose environmental

information at all (see Table-4). This give rises the question, “do the subsidiaries of MNCs

spend or invest money or different purposes of environment at all?” Another question comes

next, why the subsidiaries is of MNCs in Bangladesh do not disclose environmental

information in their CARs. The sample companies were ranked on the basis of descending

order of disclosing of environmental information. Table-4 shows the companies disclosing

environmental information.


The companies disclosing environmental information belong to manufacturing companies in

general and covers only chemical, textile and food and allied industries in Bangladesh.

Companies belong to other industry sectors did not disclose any environmental information in

their CARs.

[Munka move the section 4.1.2 to the appendix B]

4.1.2 The Nature of Environmental Disclosure in Bangladesh

As regards the environmental disclosure, a very few companies make statements in their

corporate annual reports. The environmental information can only be found either in the

Chairman’s Review or Directors’ Report. However, the companies disclosing environmental


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information, do not disclose hard quantitative facts on expenditure incurred, and targets set

and achieved. A few sample extracts follow

1.

Extract from Annual Report of Square Pharmaceuticals Ltd. For the year 1998- 99

Under the head “Environmental Role” in the Directors’ Report the company mention

The company continuously and consciously endeavours to improve

environmental impact on the society. It is discharging chemical effluents

after proper treatment and processing. The management is fully responsive

to the environmental role of the company and participants in all national programs for pollution on control and other hazards.

2. Extract from annual report of Beximco Pharmaceuticals Ltd. For the year 1998-99

The Chairman’s Review contains page on “Caring for Environmental” which states

Discharge of conventional substances from the company’s

manufacturing plant is subject to stringent controls. Regular environmental

monitoring is carried out. Effluent treatment plant reduces the hazardousimpact of the emissions to a minimum. Solvents used in the synthesis

processes are recovered in efficient recovery plants. Wherever, practicable,BPL works to reduce the impact of operations on the environment. BPL

continuously strives to improve performance and optimise the use of allmaterial and human resources, thereby minimising adverse impacts on

environment.

The company continuously and consciously endeavours to improve

environmental impact on the society. It is discharging chemical effluents after

proper treatment and processing. The management is fully responsive to the

environmental role of the company and participants in all national programs

for pollution on control and other hazards.

3.

Extracted from the annual report of Alpha Tobacco Manufacturing Company Ltd. of

1998-99

Under the head “Environment” in the Chairman’s Statement, the company states

Environment

The pollution in the factory has been brought into the reasonable

level of control by carrying out a series of measures like central dustcollection system., isolation of D.R.F. unit and control of acoustics. These

measures have enabled us to obtain the environment control certificate from

the concerned department.


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4.2.1 Correlation analysis

To examine the correlation between the dependent and independent variables, Pearson

product moment correlation coefficients (r) were computed. A correlation matrix of all the

values of r for the explanatory variables along with the dependent variables was constructed

and is reported in Table 5. The Pearson product-moment coefficients of the correlation

between INLINK and MNCS and between INLINK and SALES variables are higher than the

coefficient of the correlation between every two of the other corporate attributes. Table 5

shows a noteworthy collinearity ( p ≤ 0.01) between certain variables (i.e., between INLINK

and MNCS variables (.335), and between INLINK and SALES variables (.336). However,

Kaplan (1982) suggests that multicollinearity may be a problem when the correlation between

independent variables is 0.90 and above whereas Emory, (1982) considered more than 0.80 to

be problematic. It is evident from the table that the magnitude of the correlation between

variables seems to indicate no severe multicollinearity problems.


4.3.1 Results of Regression Analysis

It was hypothesised that for the sample companies, INLINK, SALES, ROASSTES,

NPMARGIN, MNCS and INDUSTRY variables would be positively associated with the

extent of environmental disclosure. However, it was found that only the relation between

environmental disclosure and the mutinationality variable was negatively (subsidiary of a

multinational company) and sales turn over was positively significant at 5% level (see Table

6. The association between environmental disclosure and international link of the audit firm

(INLINK) variable was found to be significant only at a 10% level. The relationship between

environmental disclosure and other three variables were found not to be significant.



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The R 2

under the model was .314, which indicates that the model is capable of explaining

31.40% of the variability of the disclosure of environmental information in the sample

Bangladeshi companies under study. The adjusted R 2 indicate that 26.40 percent of the

variation in the dependent variable in the model used here is explained by variations in the

independent variables. The F-ratio indicates that the model significantly explains the

variations in environmental disclosure of annual reports in Bangladesh Table 7 indicates that

the actual sign of one of the variables were not in the direction predicted.



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5.1 Summary and Conclusion

It is very interesting to note that at least some of the companies in Bangladesh are making

efforts to provide environmental information on voluntary basis in their CARs. The study

shows that only 5% companies disclose environmental information in their corporate annual

reports. These companies made environmental information on a voluntary basis which was

purely qualitative in nature. Contrary to the developed and some developing countries, the

disclosure of environmental information made by the listed companies in their corporate

annual reports in Bangladesh is very disappointing. According to the Environmental

Protection Act 1995 in Bangladesh, it is not compulsory for the companies to disclose

environmental disclosure in their CARs.

This paper has reported the results of multiple linear regression to test the association

between a number of corporate attributes and the extent of environmental disclosure in

company annual reports for a developing country, Bangladesh. The extent of environmental

disclosure was measured using unweighted environmental disclosure index. The results

showed that corporate environmental disclosure levels are associated with some company

characteristics. For Bangladesh, the only variable that was found to be significant in

determining disclosure levels is size of the company (Sales Turnover). Which means that the

companies with larger sales turnover discloses more environmental information than the

small companies. However, it was found that the relationship between corporate

environmental disclosure was negatively associated with the subsidiary of a multinational

company variable at 5% level. This means that the subsidiary companies in Bangladesh does

not disclose information in their corporate annual reports. In Pakistan, many of the subsidiary

companies in their corporate annual reports, have made references to their environmental

safety measures. However, it is not clear why the sample subsidiaries of multinational


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companies in Bangladesh did not disclose any environmental information at all. This calls for

further investigation.

There is no waste recycling activities in Bangladesh and industries are not required to install,

operate and maintain air-pollution control equipment to comply with emission standards. It

may be the fact that the users of CARs Bangladesh are not financially literate enough for the

very positive attitude regarding increased environmental disclosure in the CARs of

companies. As a result, the audience in Bangladesh is not getting more environmental

information than the amount they really require in foreseeable future. However, it may be

suggested that efforts should be made by the companies to disclose environmental

information in their corporate annual reports.

The Korean Securities Exchange Commission (KSEC) followed suit by enacting in 1996 a

provision in the Corporate Accounting Standards (CAS) which requires the inclusion of

environmental disclosure in the form of footnote to the corporate financial reports.

Bangladesh can share the experiences of Korea, Singapore, Malaysia and other developing

countries and necessary steps can be made so that the Securities and Exchange Commission

(SEC) in Bangladesh enact a provision in the Securities and Exchange Rules 1987 or

Companies Act 1994 which may require the inclusion of environmental information in the

form of accompanying footnote, the Chairman’s Review or Directors’ Report in the

Corporate Annual Reports (CARs). This will definitely provide a valuable momentum for the

Bangladeshi companies as incorporate social environmental perspectives into the financial

statements in Bangladesh.


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All the companies should disclose environmental information in one section of the CARs. As

all environmental information is not quantifiable, both quantitative and qualitative

information should be included in CARs. The companies in Bangladesh should consider the

fact that response to negative results may not be as bad as might have been anticipated. The

Institute of Chartered Accountants of Bangladesh (ICAB) should develop proper standards

and formats for the presentation of corporate environmental information particularly for the

large corporations in Bangladesh.

This study considers the annual reports for a single year (i.e. 1999). Further research can be

undertaken to measure the extent of environmental disclosure longitudinally to determine

whether quality of disclosure has improved over time. Such a study would provide additional

insights on corporate disclosure practices in Bangladesh. This study does not concentrate on

any particular industry type. Further research can be undertaken based on particular industry

type (e.g., the pharmaceutical industry and textile industries in Bangladesh). The number of

environmental disclosure items was limited to 20 items. The results may be different if the

number of environmental information were increased or another set of environmental

disclosure items were examined.


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Table 1List of independent variables, their labels and expected signs and

relationships in the regression

Variable

Labelsin the OLS

Variables Expected sign and relationship

INTLINK International link of auditing firms INLINK has a significant positiverelationship with the level of environmental

disclosure

SALES Total of sales SALES has a significant positive relationshipwith the level of environmental disclosure

NPMARGIN Net profit margin NPMARGIN has a significant positive

relationship with the level of environmentaldisclosure

ROASSETS Rate of return on total assets ROASSETS has a significant positive

relationship with the level of environmental

disclosure

MNCS Multinationality of companies(Subsidiary of a multinational

company)

MULTICOM has a significant positiverelationship with the level of environmental

disclosure

ASSETS Total assets ASSETS has a significant positiverelationship with the level of environmental

disclosure

INDUSTRY Industry Type INDUSTRY a significant positive relationshipwith the level of environmental disclosure

Table-2

Items of environmental items of information not disclosed by any sample companies

Item

Number

Item of information

3 Future estimates of expenditures for pollution control equipment and facilities.

4 Future estimates of operating costs for pollution control equipment and facilities.

5 Financing for pollution control equipment or facilities.

7 Water discharge information.

11 Conservation of natural resources.

12 Recycling plant of waste products

14 Anti-litter and conservation campaign

18 Energy conservation


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Table-3

Items of environmental items of information disclosed by any sample companies

Item No. Item of Environmental Information DisclosedNot

Disclosed

% of

disclosure

1 Past and current expenditure for pollutioncontrol equipment and facilities.

4 16 20%

2Past and current operating costs of

pollution control equipment and facilities. 2 18 10%

6Air emission information.

2 18 10%

8Solid waste disposal information.

2 18 10%

9Compliance status of facilities.

1 19 5%

10Environmental policies or companyconcern for the environment. 6 14 30%

13Installation of effluent treatment plant

2 18 10%

15Land reclamation and forestation

programmes 2 18 10%

16Pollution control of industrial process

2 18 10%

19

Raw materials consevation

1 19 5%

20Support for public or private action

designed to protect the environment. 1 19 5%

Table-4

Ranking of the Companies Disclosing Environmental Information

Number Name of the companies No. of items

disclosed

Rank under EDI

1 Beximco Pharmaceuticals Ltd. 7 1

2 Square Pharmaceuticals Ltd. 6 2

3 Shaiham Textile Mills ltd. 6 2

4 Alpha Tobacco Manufactuting Ltd. 6 2

5 Aramit Ltd. 5 5

6 Shinepukur Holdings Ltd. 2 6


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Table 5

Spearman Rank Correlation

VARIABLES NPMARGIN ROASSETS INDUSTRY INLINK ASSETS MNCS SALES

NPMARGIN1.000

ROASSETS -.012 1.000

INDUSTRY -.067 .184 1.000

INLINK -.195 .063 -.041 1.000

ASSETS .256* .067 -.049 .267* 1.000

MNCS -.195 .063 -.041 .335** .121 1.000

SALES .031 .033 -.158 .366** .256* .147 1.000** coefficient of correlation significant at 1% level or better (p ≤0.001)

*coefficient of correlation significant at 5% level or better (p ≤0.05)


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Table 6

Summary of the regression output

Coefficient of multiple regression (Multiple R) .564

Coefficient of determination (R ) .314

Adjusted R .264

Standard Error .2248

Analysis of Variance

D.F. Sum of Squares Mean Squares

Regression 6 1.771 .295

Residual 75 3.790 5.054

F ratio = 5.840

------------------ Variables in the Equation ------------------

Unstandardized Coefficients Standardized

Coefficients

Variable B Standard Error Beta T Sig T

(constant) 8.971E-03 .053 .170 .865

NPMARGIN 4.78E-07 .000 .064 .648 .519

INDUSTRY 2.559E-02 .058 .044 .442 .660

INLINK .114 .067 .144 1.695 .094

SALES 5.660E-08 .000 .481 4.614 .000

MNCS -.206 .095 -.221 -2.174 .033

ROASSETS 6.245E-08 .000 .004 .041 .964

Table 7

Relationship between corporate environmental disclosure and corporate attributesfor Bangladeshi Sample companies

Variable labels Expected sign Actual sign Significance levelNPMARGIN + +

ROASSETS + +

INDUSTRY + +

INLINK + + *

MNCS + − **

SALES + + **

* Significance level at 5%

** Significance level at 1%


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Appendix AEnvironmental Disclosure Index

1.

Past and current expenditure for pollution control equipment and facilities.

2.

Past and current operating costs of pollution control equipment and facilities.

3.

Future estimates of expenditures for pollution control equipment and facilities.

4.

Future estimates of operating costs for pollution control equipment and facilities.

5. Financing for pollution control equipment or facilities.

6.

Air emission information.

7.

Water discharge information.

8.

Solid waste disposal information.

9.

Compliance status of facilities.

10. Environmental policies or company concern for the environment.

11.

Conservation of natural resources.

12.

Recycling plant of waste products

13.

Installation of effluent treatment plant

14.

Anti-litter and conservation campaign

15. Land reclamation and forestation programmes

16. Pollution control of industrial process

17.

Research on new methods of production to reduce environmental pollution

18.

Energy conservation

19.

Raw materials conservation

20. Support for public or private action designed to protect the environment.


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References

Belal, A. T. 1999. “Corporate Social Disclosure in Bangladesh Annual Reports”, The

Bangladesh Accountants, ICAB, Vol 27, No. 1, ( January-March): 76-81.

Belkaoui, A. 1976. “The Impact of the Disclosure of the Environmental Effects of

Organizational Behaviour on the Market”, Financial Management , (Winter): 26-31.

Belkaoui, A. and Karpik, P. G. 1989. Determinants of the Corporate Decision to Disclose

Social Information, Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal , Vol. 2, No. 1:.36-51.

Bowman, E.H. and Haire, M. 1975. “A Strategic Posture Towards Corporate Social

Responsibility”, California Management Review, (Winter): 49-58.

Choi, J. S. 1998. “An Investigation of the Initial Voluntary Environmental Disclosures Made

in Korean Semi-Annual Financial Reports”, A conference paper accepted for the Second

Asian Pacific Interdisciplinary Research in Accounting, Osaka University, Japan.

Cowen, S., Ferrari, L. and Parker, L. 1987. The Impact of Corporate Characteristics on

Social Accounting Disclosure: A Topology and Frequency Based Analysis. Accounting,

Organisations and Society. Vol. 12. No. 2: 111-122.

Davey, H.B. 1982. “Corporate Social Responsibility Disclosure in New Zealand: An

Empirical Investigation”. Unpublished Working Paper , Massey University, Palmerston

North, New Zealand.

De Villiers, C. J. (1998), “The Willingness of South Africans to Support More Green

Reporting” South African Journal of Economic and Management Science, Vol. 1, No.1: 145-

167.

De Villiers, C. J. and Vorster, Q. 1995. “More Corporate Environmental Reporting in South

Africa”, Meditari: 44-66.

Deegan, C. and Gordon, B. 1996. A Study of The Environmental Disclosure Practices of

Australian Corporations. Accounting and Business Research, Vol. 26. No. 3: 187-199.

Doppegieter, J.J and Devlliers, C.J. 1996. “Environmental Reporting Practices in African

Energy Sector”, Management Dynamics, Vol. 5, No.1: 15-42.

Eken, R.C.W. 1998. “Environmental Disclosure in the Annual Report: An Analysis by

Branch of Business in Netherlands, paper presented on the European Accounting Conference.

Emory, E. 1982. Business Research Methods. Homewood, IL: Irwin.

Fekat, A. M., Inclan, C., and Petroni. 1996. Corporate Environmental Disclosures:

Competetive Disclosure Hypothesis Using 1991 Annual Report Data. The International

Journal of Accounting, Vol. 31 No. 2: 175-195.


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33

Gamble, G. O., Hsu, K, Jackson, C. and Tollerson, C. D. 1996. Environmental Disclosure in

Annual Reports: An International Perspective. The International Journal of Accounting . Vol.

31. No. 3:.293-331.

Gamble, G. O., Hsu, K, Kite, D. and Radtke, R. R. 1995. “Environmental Disclosures in

Annual Reports and 10-Ks: An Examination.” Accounting Horizons, Volume 9, No. 3: 34-54.

Gray, R. H., Kouhy, R and Lavers, S. 1995. Constructing a Research Database of Social and

Environmental Reporting by UK Companies: A Methodological Note”. Accounting, Auditing

and Accountability Journal , Vol. 8:78-108.

Gray, R. H., Kouhy, R and Lavers, S.. 1995. Corporate Social and Environmental Reporting:

A Review of the Literature and Longitudinal Study of UK Disclosure. Accounting, Auditing

and Accountability Journal , Vol. 8: 47-77.

Gray, R., Owen, D. and Maunders, K. 1987. Corporate Social Reporting: Accounting and

Accountability, Prentice-Hall, Homel Hempstead.

Guthrie, J. and Parkar, L. 1990. Corporate Disclosure Practice: A Comparative InternationalAnalysis. Advances in Public Interest Accounting . Vol. 3:159-175.

Hackston, D. and Milne, M. J. 1996, “Some Determinants of Social and Environmental

Disclosures in New Zealand Companies”, Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal ,

Vol. 9 N0. 1:77-108.

Halme, M. and Huse, M. 1997. “The Influence of Corporate Governance, Industry and

Country Factors of Environmental Reporting.” Scandinavian Journal of Management. Vol.

13, No 2: 137-157

Healy, P., and Palepu , K. 2001, ‘Information Asymmetry, Corporate Disclosure, and the

Capital Markets: A Review of the Empirical Disclosure Literature’, Journal of Accountingand Economics, Vol. 31, pp. 405-440.

Hossain , M. A. 1999. Disclosure of Information in Corporate Annual Reports of Listed Non-

financial Companies in Developing Countries: A Comparative Study of India , Pakistan and

Bangladesh, Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, School of Accounting and Finance, The Victoria

University of Manchester.

Ismail, Z and Koh, B. E. 1999. “Corporate Social Responsibility Disclosure in Singapore”, a

paper presented in Third International Conference on International Accounting and

Nanagement Issues, Bangalore, India.

Kaplan, R. 1982. Advanced Management Accounting. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall

KPMG. 1997a. UK Environmental Reporting Survey, KPMG: London.

KPMG. 1997b. The KPMG Survey of Environmental Reporting. KPMG: London.


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Lundholm, R. J. and L. Myers (2002), ‘Bringing the Future Forward: The Effect of Disclosure

on the Return-Earnings Relation’, Journal of Accounting Research, Vol. 40, pp. 809-840.

Ng, L. W. 1985. “Social Responsibility Disclosures of Selected New Zealand Companies for

1981, 1982 and 1983. Occasional Paper No.54. Massey University, Palmerston North, New

Zealand.

Patten, D. M. 1991. “Exposure, Legitimacy, and Social Disclosure”, Journal of Accounting

and Public Policy, Vol. 10: 297-308.

Porwal, L. S. and Sharma, N. 1991. “Social Responsibility Disclosure by Indian Companies”,

The Chartered Accountant (India), Vol. XXXIX, No 8, (February): 630-634.

Preston, L.E. 1978. “Analysing Corporate Social Performance: Methods and Results”,

Journal of Contemporary Business, Vol. 7: 135-149.

Roberts, R. W. 1992. Determinants of Corporate Social Responsibility Disclosure.

Accounting, Organisations and Society. Vol. 17. No. 6: 595-612.

Robertson, D.C and Nicholson, N. 1996. Expressions of Social Responsibility in UK Firms,

Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 15: 1095-1106.

Singh, D. R. and Ahuja, J. M. 1983. "Corporate Social Reporting in India." International

Journal of Accounting Education and Research, (Spring): 151-69.

Spicer, B. H. 1978. “Investors, Corporate Social Performance and Information Disclosure:

An Empirical Study”, The Accounting Review, Vol. 53 No.1: 178-185.

Waddock, S.A. and Graves, S.B. 1997. “The corporate Social Performance-Financial

Performance Link.”, Strategic Management Journal, Vol. 18, No. 4: 303-319.

Watts R. L. and Zimmerman, J L. 1986. Positive Accounting Theory, Englewood Cliffs, N.J:

Prentice Hall Inc.

Wiseman, J. 1982. An Evaluation of Environmental Disclosure Made in Corporate Annual

Reports. Accounting, Organisations and Society. Vol. 7. No. 1: 53-63.


36/38

35

References (Alternative)

Belal, A. T. (1999), “Corporate Social Disclosure in Bangladesh Annual Reports”, The

Bangladesh Accountants, ICAB, Vol 27, No. 1, January-March, pp. 76-81.

Belkaoui, A (1976), “The Impact of the Disclosure of the Environmental Effects of

Organizational Behaviour on the Market”, Financial Management , Winter, pp. 26-31.

Belkaoui, A. and Karpik, P. G. (1989) Determinants of the Corporate Decision to Disclose

Social Information, Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal , Vol. 2, No. 1. pp. 36-

51.

Bowman, E.H. and Haire, M (1975) “A Strategic Posture Towards Corporate Social

Responsibility”, California Management Review, Winter, pp.49-58.

Choi, J. S (1998) “An Investigation of the Initial Voluntary Environmental Disclosures Made

in Korean Semi-Annual Financial Reports”, A conference paper accepted for the Second

Asian Pacific Interdisciplinary Research in Accounting, Osaka University, Japan.

Cowen, S., Ferrari, L. and Parker, L. (1987) The Impact of Corporate Characteristics on

Social Accounting Disclosure: A Topology and Frequency Based Analysis. Accounting,

Organisations and Society. Vol. 12. No. 2, pp. 111-122.

Davey, H.B. (1982) “Corporate Social Responsibility Disclosure in New Zealand: An

Empirical Investigation”. Unpublished Working Paper , Massey University, Palmerston

North, New Zealand.

Deegan, C. and Gordon, B. (1996) A Study of The Environmental Disclosure Practices of

Australian Corporations. Accounting and Business Research, Vol. 26. No. 3. pp.187-199.

De Villiers, C. J. and Vorster, Q (1995), “More Corporate Environmental Reporting in South

Africa”, Meditari, pp.44-66.

De Villiers, C. J. (1998), “The Willingness of South Africans to Support More Green

Reporting” South African Journal of Economic and Management Science, WS, Vol. 1, No.1,

pp.145-1265.

Doppegieter, J.J and Devlliers, C.J (1996) “Environmental Reporting Practices in African

Energy Sector”, Management Dynamics, Vol. 5, No.1 pp.15-42.

Eken, R.C.W (1998), “Environmental Disclosure in the Annual Report: An Analysis by

Branch of Business in Netherlands, paper presented on the European Accounting Conference,

1998.

Emory, E. 1982. Business Research Methods. Homewood, IL: Irwin.


37/38

36

Fekat, A. M., Inclan, C., and Petroni, (1996) Corporate Environmental Disclosures:

Competetive Disclosure Hypothesis Using 1991 Annual Report Data. The International

Journal of Accounting, Vol. 31 No. 2, pp. 175-195.

Gamble, G. O., Hsu, K, Jackson, C. and Tollerson, C. D. (1996) Environmental Disclosure in

Annual Reports: An International Perspective. The International Journal of Accounting . Vol.

31. No. 3. pp. 293-331.

Gamble, G. O., Hsu, K, Kite, D. and Radtke, R. R.(1995) “Environmental Disclosures in

Annual Reports and 10-Ks: An Examination.” Accounting Horizons, Volume 9, No. 3, pp.

34-54.

Gray, R., Owen, D. and Maunders, K (1987), Corporate Social Reporting: Accounting and

Accountability, Prentice-Hall, Homel Hempstead.

Gray, R. H., Kouhy, R and Lavers, S. (1995) Corporate Social and Environmental Reporting:

A Review of the Literature and Longitudinal Study of UK Disclosure. Accounting, Auditing

and Accountability Journal , Vol. 8. pp. 47-77.

Gray, R. H., Kouhy, R and Lavers, S. (1995b) Constructing a Research Database of Social

and Environmental Reporting by UK Companies: A Methodological Note”. Accounting,

Auditing and Accountability Journal , Vol. 8. pp. 78-108.

Guthrie, J. and Parkar, L (1990) Corporate Disclosure Practice: A Comparative International

Analysis. Advances in Public Interest Accounting . Vol. 3. Pp.159-175.

Hackston, D. and Milne, M. J. (1996), “Some Determinants of Social and Environmental

Disclosures in New zealand Companies”, Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal ,

Vol. 9 N0. 1, pp 77-108.

Hossain , M. A (1999) Disclosure of Information in Corporate Annual Reports of Listed Non-

financial Companies in Developing Countries: A Comparative Study of India , Pakistan and

Bangladesh, Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, School of Accounting and Finance, The Victoria

University of Manchester.

Ismail, Z and Koh, B. E (1999), “Corporate Social Responsibility Disclosure in Singapore”, a

paper presented in Third International Conference on International Accounting and

Nanagement Issues, Bangalore, India.

Kaplan, R. 1982. Advanced Management Accounting. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall

Emory (1982)

KPMG (1997a) UK Environmental Reporting Survey, 1997, KPMG, London.

KPMG (1997b) The KPMG Survey of Environmental Reporting , 1997, KPMG, London.

Ng, L. W. (1985) “Social Responsibility Disclosures of Selected New Zealand Companies for

1981, 1982 and 1983. Occasional Paper No.54. Massey University, Palmerston North, New

Zealand.


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Patten, D. M. (1991), “Exposure, Legitimacy, and Social Disclosure”, Journal of Accounting

and Public Policy, Vol. 10, pp. 297-308.

Porwal, L. S. and Sharma, N (1991), “Social Responsibility Disclosure by Indian

Companies”, The Chartered Accountant (India), Vol. XXXIX, No 8, February, pp.630-634.

Preston, L.E (1978), “Analysing Corporate Social Performance: Methods and Results”,

Journal of Contemporary Business, Vol. 7, pp.135-149.

Roberts, R. W. (1992) Determinants of Corporate Social Responsibility Disclosure.

Accounting, Organisations and Society. Vol. 17. No. 6, pp. 595-612.

Robertson, D.C and Nicholson, N (1996) Expressions of Social Responsibility in UK Firms,

Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 15, pp.1095-1106.

Singh, D. R. and Ahuja, J. M (1983). "Corporate Social Reporting in India." International

Journal of Accounting Education and Research, Spring , pp. 151-69.

Spicer, B. H. (1978), “Investors, Corporate Social Performance and Information Disclosure:

An Empirical Study”, The Accounting Review, Vol. 53 No.1, pp. 178-185.

Watts R. L. and Zimmerman, J L. (1986) Positive Accounting Theory, Englewood Cliffs,

N.J: Prentice Hall Inc.

Wiseman, J. (1982) An Evaluation of Environmental Disclosure Made in Corporate Annual

Reports. Accounting, Organisations and Society. Vol. 7. No. 1, pp. 53-63.

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