《美国公司提供的企业社会责任信息披露【外文翻译】 .doc》由会员分享，可在线阅读，更多相关《美国公司提供的企业社会责任信息披露【外文翻译】 .doc（12页珍藏版）》请在三一办公上搜索。
1、本科毕业论文（设计）外 文 翻 译外文题目 The Supply of Corporate Social Responsibility Disclosure Among U.S. Firms 外文出处 Journal of Business Ethics 2009（84）：P497-527 外文作者 Lori Holder-Webb,Jeffrey R.Cohen,Leda Nath ,David Wood 原文：The Supply of Corporate Social Responsibility Disclosure Among U.S. FirmsIntroductionCorpor
2、ate 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 trillion
3、to $24.4 trillion, while the share of these assets invested in socially responsible investments grew from $639 billion to $2.29 trillion (Social Investment Forum SIF, 2006).At the same time, large institutional investors and multistakeholder groups including the UN Principles for Responsible Investm
4、ent project, 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
5、has driven an equally dramatic growth in the need for information. The objective of this study is to document the disclosure patterns of CSR by U.S. rms. Investors are not the only interested parties; CSR activity provides an increasing focus of product development and marketing practitioners. Resea
6、rch demonstrates that certain 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) note,in any community, it is common to nd retailers donating to local charities, spo
7、nsoring little league sports teams, and 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 pride.While the question of what e
8、xactly motivates rms to engage in CSR practices 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 doe
9、s not answer the needs of these parties, who 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 wel
10、l as with equity returns results in a demand for greater 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
11、 of the work in this area is directed at examining disclosures 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 cost/benet approach to environmental disclosures. T
12、he costs are the costs that other parties other than shareholders will 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
13、 capital markets and the trading volume for its stock were associated 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
14、in Canada as opposed to the United States. Alnajjar (2000) examined the 1990 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 1
15、990 when the data was collected for the Alnajjar (2000) study and since the Cormier and Magnan (1999) looked at Canadian rms, it is not clear how U.S. corporations in the 2000s have responded to these increased demands for CSR information. Furthermore, prior research evaluating the content of CSR di
16、sclosures has focused primarily on a single reporting format (generally the annual report, 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 disclos
17、ure behavior. We therefore extend this literature by exploring the entire identiable body of public 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
18、information; prior research has largely relied upon frequency of disclosure alone as a proxy for 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 U.S. rms to det
19、ermine what types of information are being provided and through what means of transmission. We perform a content analysis on the disclosures made by a size-and industry-stratied sample of 50 publicly traded U.S. rms during 2004. Results suggest that companies disclose a wide variety of CSR informati
20、on through mandated and voluntary media. Consistent with prior research, we nd size-and industry-driven differences in disclosure behavior. Our results suggest differences in the pattern and volume of disclosure in U.S. rms when compared with other studies examining global enterprises. In the next s
21、ection, we review the relevant theory and research and present the research questions and hypotheses. Then we describe 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
22、the nature of corporate reporting of non-nancial information.Literature review, research questions, and hypothesesIt is difcult, 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 r
23、eport on those activities to stakeholders. The choice of broad theoretical framework depends on whether the researcher approaches 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 the
24、y are the right thing to do.Economic theories indicate that these activities should be promoted only to the degree that they create shareholder wealth through increasing prot.Virtually all theoretical approaches carry the implication that it is not enough to partake of a CSR action, it is necessary
25、then to disseminate information about the action that has been taken. A matter of signicant difference between the theories pertains to 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
26、activity is to enlist the support of a particular party, the rm will of necessity publicize the activity through channels likely to reach that party. Therefore, before launching an exploration of the approaches to disclosure, we offer a brief overview of the why of CSR activity. Neo-classical econom
27、ics Bird et al. (2007) adopt a traditional economic approach to the question, suggesting that managers should apply net present value (NPV) analysis to all potential CSR activities and take only the actions that result in a positive NPV and, thus, increase shareholder wealth. An important element of
28、 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 markets are slow to impound the valuation implications of non-event-type actions into market prices, with the exception of diversity initiatives. While
29、the authors do not explicitly consider the matter of information dissemination, the implication of their approach is that disclosure should take place through the channels to which shareholders are accustomed (i.e., mandatory lings such as annual reports and 10-Ks). A problematic issue for the tradi
30、tional neo-classical approach to CSR is that unlike production decisions, CSR activities and their outcomes may not yield the mathematical tractability necessary for reliable NPV analysis. Marketing strategy Another stream of inquiry that suggests that CSR may be motivated mainly by wealth concerns
31、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 consumer beliefs about products are inuenced by the information that they possess both about corporate ability (the producers compe
32、titive 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 good corporate reputation, posited by numerous theorists to provide a source of economic benets to an organization (see Brown
33、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 perceptions exert positive effects on consumer behavior. They note that even though there is potential economic value
34、 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 forum.Handelman and Arnold (1999) provide further evidence on wealth creation through marketing activities subsumed under CSR. The
35、y 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 strategic angle equal to that of competitive positioning and product attributes.Consistent with Brown and Daci
36、n (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 institutional actions below which even highly positioned rms begin to experience negative consequences. Hooghiemstr
37、a (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 by direct economic concerns such as customer perceptions and access to capital markets. The marketing
38、-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 information are the existing customers and members of the public with a general interest and that
39、 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 economy (Campbell et al., 2003; Cormier and Gordon, 2001; Deegan, 2002;Deegan and Gordon, 1996;Dowling
40、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 is instead an organic organism that is a party to a social contract with th
41、e 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 customers, suppliers, or providers of labor and capital) or secondary stakeh
42、olders (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 required in order to enlist and maintain that support (Gray et al.
43、, 1995a). Under this general heading, researchers have variously advanced theoretical arguments based on stakeholder theory (Clarkson, 1995;Hooghiemstra, 2000; Maignan and Ralston, 2002) and on legitimation (i.e., Campbell, 2000;Grayet al., 1995a) to explain both CSR activities and disclosure.Legiti
44、mation 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 economic resources necessary to ensure o
45、rganizational 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 to promote its public ident
46、ication with socially legitimate symbols, values, and institutions. The degree to which the organization is visible and/or relies on social and political support drives the concern for legitimacy (and consequent access to resources and support) (Dowling and Pfeffer, 1975).A potential issue with appl
47、ying 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., 1995a; G
48、uthrie 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. Source:Lori Holder-Webb，Jeffrey R.Cohen,Leda Nath，David Wood.The Supply of Corporate Social Responsibility Disclosure Among U.S. Firms J.Journal of Business Ethics.2009（84）：P497-527.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
