外文翻译美国公司提供的企业社会责任信息披露

1、外文翻译-美国公司提供的企业社会责任信息披露 本科毕业论文设计外 文 翻 译外文题目 The Supply of Corporate Social Responsibility Disclosure Among US Firms 外文出处 Journal of Business Ethics 200984P497-527 外文作者 Lori Holder-WebbJeffrey RCohenLeda Nath David Wood 原文The Supply of Corporate Social Responsibility Disclosure Among US FirmsIntroduct

2、ionCorporate social responsibility CSR activity is an area of intense and increasing interest both on the practice and academic fronts Investor interest in rms that engage in these activities has grown dramatically Between 1995 and 2005 investments of professionally managed assets grew from 7 trilli

3、on to 244 trillion while the share of these assets invested in socially responsible investments grew from 639 billion to 229 trillion Social Investment Forum SIF 2006 At the same time large institutional investors and multistakeholder groups including the UN Principles for Responsible Investment pro

4、ject the Global Reporting Initiative GRI 2006 and the CERES a coalition of investors and public interest groups have focused attention on the materiality of social and environmental information to equity analysis The magnitude and growth of socially responsible investing SRI assets has driven an equ

5、ally dramatic growth in the need for information The objective of this study is to document the disclosure patterns of CSR by US rms Investors are not the only interested parties CSR activity provides an increasing focus of product development and marketing practitioners Research demonstrates that c

6、ertain types of CSR activity produce value for rms in terms of brand loyalty and marketing advantages Brown and Dacin 1997 Sen and Bhattacharya 2001 As Handleman and Arnold 1999 p 36 notein any community it is common to nd retailers donating to local charities sponsoring little league sports teams a

7、nd proudly displaying the national ag These actions demonstrate the retailers adherence to unwritten but powerful normative rules of acceptable social conduct such as becoming involved with the community and promoting national prideWhile the question of what exactly motivates rms to engage in CSR pr

8、actices is a matter for ongoing research it is clear from the growth in both SRI assets and customer markets for socially responsible goods that there is a need for information on these practices The historical emphasis of traditional nancial information does not answer the needs of these parties wh

9、o require information not only about future earnings but also about the rms social and environmental responsibility and interactions with the environment and home communities Adams 2004 Anderson et al 2005 The concern with non-nancial factors as well as with equity returns results in a demand for gr

10、eater accountability from managers According to the SIF p 5 issues now occupying mainstream consciousnesscorporate governance transparency accountability and greater disclosure have long been central to the practice of social investing Most of the work in this area is directed at examining disclosur

11、es from European and Australian rms and nearly all multi-national studies indicate international differences in disclosure behavior In North America Cormier and Magnan 1999 proposed a costbenet approach to environmental disclosures The costs are the costs that other parties other than shareholders w

12、ill use the information and the benets are the reduction in information asymmetry between managers and shareholders Cormier and Magnan 1999 tested this on a sample of Canadian rms and found that variables such as a rms reliance on capital markets and the trading volume for its stock were associated

13、with increased environmental disclosure They also conclude that environmental disclosures are increasing over time and that the increased disclosure in Canada could be a function of the less litigious reporting environment found in Canada as opposed to the United States Alnajjar 2000 examined the 19

14、90 social responsibility disclosures of Fortune 500 companies He found that size and protability affected the quality and quantity of disclosure Since there have been a number of changes in the disclosure environment since 1990 when the data was collected for the Alnajjar 2000 study and since the Co

15、rmier and Magnan 1999 looked at Canadian rms it is not clear how US corporations in the 2000s have responded to these increased demands for CSR information Furthermore prior research evaluating the content of CSR disclosures has focused primarily on a single reporting format generally the annual rep

16、ort more recently the corporate website Gray et al 1995 has suggested that the use of a single format for analysis purposes may be signicantly limiting the understanding that can be derived about CSR disclosure behavior We therefore extend this literature by exploring the entire identiable body of p

17、ublic disclosures made by the sample rms during 2004 A major contribution of our paper is the development of a means to assess directly the emphasis that management places on disseminating a given type of information prior research has largely relied upon frequency of disclosure alone as a proxy for

18、 emphasis In this paper we evaluate the state of reporting of social and environmental responsibility often known as corporate social responsibility or CSR reporting among a sample of US rms to determine what types of information are being provided and through what means of transmission We perform a

19、 content analysis on the disclosures made by a size-and industry-stratied sample of 50 publicly traded US rms during 2004 Results suggest that companies disclose a wide variety of CSR information through mandated and voluntary media Consistent with prior research we nd size-and industry-driven diffe

20、rences in disclosure behavior Our results suggest differences in the pattern and volume of disclosure in US rms when compared with other studies examining global enterprises In the next section we review the relevant theory and research and present the research questions and hypotheses Then we descr

21、ibe the research method and discuss the results We conclude with the implications of the study for reporting activists accounting rms regulators and academics who are reconsidering the nature of corporate reporting of non-nancial informationLiterature review research questions and hypothesesIt is di

22、fcult from an academic and theoretical perspective to disentangle the differences between a rms decision to engage in CSR activities and the decision on why how and when to report on those activities to stakeholders The choice of broad theoretical framework depends on whether the researcher approach

23、es the question of CSR from an economic or an ethical standpoint Cetindamar and Husoy 2007 Ethical theories indicate that these activities should be promoted because they are the right thing to doEconomic theories indicate that these activities should be promoted only to the degree that they create

24、shareholder wealth through increasing protVirtually all theoretical approaches carry the implication that it is not enough to partake of a CSR action it is necessary then to disseminate information about the action that has been taken A matter of signicant difference between the theories pertains to

25、 what actions should be taken and who should be informed of them To some extent the answer to the rst drives the answer to the second if the primary goal of the activity is to enlist the support of a particular party the rm will of necessity publicize the activity through channels likely to reach th

26、at party Therefore before launching an exploration of the approaches to disclosure we offer a brief overview of the why of CSR activity Neo-classical economics Bird et al 2007 adopt a traditional economic approach to the question suggesting that managers should apply net present value NPV analysis t

27、o all potential CSR activities and take only the actions that result in a positive NPV and thus increase shareholder wealth An important element of this theory in the CSR context is the neo-classical notion that the shareholder is the only stakeholder of signicant interest This study nds that market

28、s are slow to impound the valuation implications of non-event-type actions into market prices with the exception of diversity initiatives While the authors do not explicitly consider the matter of information dissemination the implication of their approach is that disclosure should take place throug

29、h the channels to which shareholders are accustomed ie mandatory lings such as annual reports and 10-Ks A problematic issue for the traditional neo-classical approach to CSR is that unlike production decisions CSR activities and their outcomes may not yield the mathematical tractability necessary fo

30、r reliable NPV analysis Marketing strategy Another stream of inquiry that suggests that CSR may be motivated mainly by wealth concerns is found in the marketing literature see Robin and Reidenbach 1987 for an extensive survey of this literature Brown and Dacin 1997 provide empirical evidence that co

31、nsumer beliefs about products are inuenced by the information that they possess both about corporate ability the producers competitive advantage and about the producers CSR even though the CSR policies are often unrelated to the companys ability to produce Both items are key elements in creating a g

32、ood corporate reputation posited by numerous theorists to provide a source of economic benets to an organization see Brown and Dacin 1997 for a review of this literature Brown and Dacin 1997 nd that negative CSR perceptions are shown to exert negative effects on consumer behavior while positive CSR

33、perceptions exert positive effects on consumer behavior They note that even though there is potential economic value in doing so it can be difcult to communicate corporate positions built around developing CSR associations a need potentially answered by CSR disclosures in the public forumHandelman a

34、nd Arnold 1999 provide further evidence on wealth creation through marketing activities subsumed under CSR They suggest that consumers appear to possess a demand for intangible factors indicating congruence with local social norms and values and that the rms promotion of these elements may yield a s

35、trategic angle equal to that of competitive positioning and product attributesConsistent with Brown and Dacin 1997 they nd that negative institutional associations exert a signicant negative effect on customer perceptions and behavior and suggest that stakeholders have a minimal level of institution

36、al actions below which even highly positioned rms begin to experience negative consequences Hooghiemstra 2000 suggests that CSR activity is a form of impression management for the rm This image management theory which encompasses matters of corporate identity and corporate image is likewise driven b

37、y direct economic concerns such as customer perceptions and access to capital markets The marketing-oriented literature on CSR activity suggests these actions are a strategic tool to build and maintain customer loyalty and market share The implications for disclosure are that the primary targets for

38、 information are the existing customers and members of the public with a general interest and that the content of the disclosure will be chosen to emphasize congruence with customer values Political economy A third theoretical approach considers these actions through the lens of the political econom

39、y Campbell et al 2003 Cormier and Gordon 2001 Deegan 2002Deegan and Gordon 1996Dowling and Pfeffer 1975 Gray et al 1995a Guthrie and Parker 1990 ODonovan 2002 Maignan and Ralston 2002 In this approach the rm is not considered to be an economic entity that can be divorced from its social context it i

40、s instead an organic organism that is a party to a social contract with the other members of its context For the rm to survive it must obtain the support and approval of its stakeholders whether those be primary stakeholders those without whose support the rm cannot function at all including custome

41、rs suppliers or providers of labor and capital or secondary stakeholders who are indirectly afliated but in a position to signicantly inuence the rms success including regulators and media Clarkson 1995 CSR activity and the consequent disclosure is a part of the ongoing communication process require

42、d in order to enlist and maintain that support Gray et al 1995a Under this general heading researchers have variously advanced theoretical arguments based on stakeholder theory Clarkson 1995Hooghiemstra 2000 Maignan and Ralston 2002 and on legitimation ie Campbell 2000Grayet al 1995a to explain both

43、 CSR activities and disclosureLegitimation pertains to efforts on the part of the rm to establish maintain or repair public perception of its dedication to stakeholder norms and values thus evincing respect for the social contract that permits it access to capital and labor markets and other economi

44、c resources necessary to ensure organizational survival Dowling and Pfeffer 1975 outline three means to establishing or improving legitimacy adapting operations to conform to existing societal expectations altering social denitions to conform with existing rm operations or engaging in communication

45、to promote its public identication with socially legitimate symbols values and institutions The degree to which the organization is visible andor relies on social and political support drives the concern for legitimacy and consequent access to resources and support Dowling and Pfeffer 1975 A potenti

46、al issue with applying legitimacy theory to CSR activity is that social norms and values are largely a function of temporal matters as issues are brought to the attention of society they seem to replace other issues of prior focus Bird et al 2007 Campbell 2000 2003 Campbell et al 2003 Gray et al 199

47、5a Guthrie and Parker 1990 Therefore for legitimacy theory to yield rmly testable hypotheses it must be possible to identify both the population with whom the rm is concerned with establishing legitimacy and the values that the population holds at the specic point in time SourceLori Holder-WebbJeffr

48、ey RCohenLeda NathDavid WoodThe Supply of Corporate Social Responsibility Disclosure Among US Firms JJournal of Business Ethics200984P497-527译文美国公司提供的企业社会责任信息披露引言企业社会责任活动这个领域在实际操作和学术前沿方面正受到越来越多的强烈关注投资者对于从事这些活动的公司的关注急遽地增长从1995年至2005年投资了专业的管理资产从7万亿美元上升到244万亿美元而这些资产的份额投资于社会责任从6390亿美元上升到29万亿美元 社会投资论坛SIF

49、2006 同时大型机构投资者和多方利益相关团体包括联合国负责投资项目的原则全球报告倡议组织GRI2006年以及投资者和公众的利益集团联盟CERES都集中关注社会和环境信息对股票分析的重要性社会责任投资SRI的资产的规模和增长带动了对信息需求的同步增长这项研究的目的是记录美国公司对企业社会责任的披露方式投资者并不是对这些唯一感兴趣的人士企业社会责任活动导致了人们对产品开发和市场实践的重视日益增加研究表明某些类型的企业社会责任活动对公司的品牌忠诚度和市场优势很有价值布朗和达欣1997森和巴塔查亚 2001正如汉德曼和阿诺德 1999第 36页 提到的在任何社会中经常会发现有零售商向当地慈善机构捐赠

50、赞助少年运动队并骄傲地展示国旗这些行动表明了这些零售商遵守着一种不成文但具有强烈约束性的社会行为规定比如密切联系社会各界并增强民族自豪感尽管关于究竟是什么促使企业参与到社会责任活动实践中来这个问题依然在研究当中从社会责任投资财产的增长和社会责任产品的消费者市场的扩大中显而易见的是对这些活动的信息需求传统财务信息通常强调的不是这些群体的需要这些群体需要的不仅仅是未来的收益还有公司社会与环境的职责与环境和家庭社区的相互作用亚当斯2004安德森等2005对非经济因素和股票回报率的关注导致了管理者加强问责制的需要根据SIF第五页占据主流意识的问题公司治理透明度问责制和加强信息披露早已成为社会投资工作的

51、中心在这方面的工作大部分是针对欧洲和澳大利亚的研究几乎所有的多国研究表明在信息披露行为上存在国际差异在北美考米尔和麦格曼1999所提出的成本获利理论是用来应付环境的披露成本费用是指股东以外的其他各方将如何利用这些信息的信息成本成本获利是指在管理者和股东之间的信息不对称性减少考米尔和麦格曼1999测试了加拿大RMS的样本发现了这个变量例如一个资本市场和其股票成交量的依赖和环境信息披露的增加有关他们还得出结论环境信息披露是随着时间不断增加而在加拿大信息披露的增加可能可能会造成诉讼报告环境的减少但是在美国这是相反的纳扎尔2000年审查了1990年财富500强企业社会责任披露他发现规模和资本容量影响信

52、息披露的质量和数量由于从纳扎尔2000研究时搜集的1990的数据以及考米尔和麦格南1999对加拿大公司的研究以来环境的披露已经发生了很大的变化所以目前还不清楚美国公司在21世纪如何应对日益增长的企业社会责任的信息需求此外以前的研究在评估企业社会责任信息披露的内容时主要集中在一个单一的报告格式通常是年度报告以及最近的公司网站等格雷等1995提出以供分析目的而使用单一格式可能在很大程度上限制了对企业社会责任披露行为产生的理解因此我们通过探索样本公司整个2004年期间公开披露的所有信息来扩展了这篇文章我们这篇文章主要的贡献是对直接评价给定类型的信息的传播强调方法的发展以前的研究在很大程度上依赖于作为

53、重点代理的信息披露的频繁度在本文中我们评估社会和环境责任通常被称为企业责任会计或CSR在美国公司的一份样本中的报告状态由此确定什么类型的信息被提供并通过什么方式传播我们做了一份对50家公开上市的不同大小和行业的美国公司的披露做了一份内容分析结果表明企业社会责任信息是通过规定和各种自发媒体来披露的与以前的研究结果一致我们发现披露行为的差异是由规模和行业的不同导致的我们的研究结果表明美国公司的披露与其他全球企业相比在规模和数量上都有差异在下一节我们回顾了相关理论和研究并提出了研究问题和假设然后我们描述了研究方法以及讨论了结果我们对关于报告活动会计师事务所监管学者和对非财务信息的性质重新定义的学者的

54、研究进行了总结文献综述问题研究和假设从学术和理论的角度去理清企业对从事企业社会责任活动的决定和为什么怎么以及何时对利益相关者报告这些活动之间的关系是很困难的研究者是否从经济或道德角度看企业社会责任问题决定了广泛理论框架的选择赛特德尔和赫索2007道德理论表明这些活动应当被推广因为他们是应当去做的正确的事经济学理论表明这些活动不仅应被推广到通过他们增加利润及创造股东财富的程度几乎所有推行的理论方法说明仅仅参与企业社会责任的行动是不够的因此对采取的行动的资料进行传播是十分必要的在理论中涉及的一个重大不同意义的问题是应该采取什么行动以及由谁来负责他们在一定程度上对的第一个以及第二个动因的回答是如果该活动的主要目标是争取一个特定派别的支持公司可能有通过各种渠道宣传活动达到这个派别要求的必要因此在发起披露情况的探索前我们提供了一个为什么要进行企业社会责任活动的简要概述伯德等人 2007 采用传统的经济学分析问题认为经理应该适应净现值 NPV 去分析所有潜在的企业社会责任活动并只执行有利于净现值的行动才能增加利益相关者的财富这个理论在企业社会责任语境的一个重要元素是古