Corporate Social Responsibility,Information Disclosure Of Corporate Social Responsibility And Corporate Sustainability Performance

Sustainable development is about meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.At present,some companies are vigorously developing the economy in order to maximize the interests of shareholders,which has led to the overexploitation and consumption of natural resources,which in turn has caused the destruction of biodiversity,environmental degradation,large carbon dioxide emissions,water pollution and desertification.These problems have led to global climate change and extreme weather,posing a serious threat to the living space of human beings.Globalization has promoted the rise of multi-national corporations,which have abundant resources and have a huge influence on the governance policies of governments,especially those of developing countries,and their lack of corporate social responsibility may induce uncontrollable crises.Therefore,the study of corporate social responsibility and corporate sustainability is one of the most important issues at present.As far as the eye can reach,the academic researches on the concepts of corporate social responsibility,information disclosure and corporate sustainable development performance have been relatively fruitful.However,with the passage of time,the meaning and importance of these concepts are also changing,attracting more and more researchers and practitioners to participate.The meaning of the concept of corporate social responsibility has expanded from the initial moral and ethical responsibility to include economic,environmental and social aspects,and at the same time,for companies,the fulfillment of corporate social responsibility has changed from a choice to a necessary survival need and way.In the increasingly strict public scrutiny and highly competitive market environment,companies must fulfill their social responsibilities in order to maintain their reputation and achieve sustainable development;in the past,CSR information disclosure was more of a voluntary behaviour,but now more and more countries and regions have begun to force listed companies or large companies to disclose social responsibility information,including not only the company’s economic performance,but also environmental,social and governance information.This kind of disclosure can not only let the public better understand the company’s operation,but also provide a platform for the company to show its own value and take responsibility,which shows that corporate social responsibility information has entered the management stage from the disclosure stage,and the company’s sustainable development performance emphasizes the company’s comprehensive performance evaluation in economic,environmental and social aspects.This is not just a short-term goal,but requires long-term strategic planning and execution.In this process,companies need to balance short-term and long-term interests,as well as local and global relationships,in order to achieve sustainable development.Therefore,the concepts of corporate social responsibility,information disclosure and corporate sustainable development performance are still of great relevance and value.Over time,they have not only not lost their novelty,but have become an essential part of the operation and management of modern businesses.A review of the related studies on corporate social responsibility,information disclosure and corporate sustainable development performance shows that the existing literature has a vague definition of the concepts of corporate social responsibility and corporate sustainable development performance,and most of the studies on the relationship between the two are mainly based on qualitative analysis.Among them,most of the corporate social responsibility is evaluated by comprehensive index or through a third party,and the company’s sustainable development performance is mainly evaluated by a single financial indicator or the integrated evaluation method of sustainable development goals,and the inconsistency of evaluation methods leads to divergence in the research on the relationship between the two.In reality,the actual social responsibility behavior of many companies is inconsistent with the information disclosed in the social responsibility report,which exacerbates the information asymmetry between external stakeholders and the company.Therefore,to explore whether corporate social responsibility can improve the company’s sustainable development performance,it is necessary to identify the performance of corporate social responsibility and pay attention to the level of corporate social responsibility information disclosure.Based on the identification of corporate social responsibility practice and social responsibility information disclosure,this thesis analyzes the relationship between corporate social responsibility and corporate sustainable development performance,corporate social responsibility and information disclosure,and information disclosure and corporate sustainable development performance by using corporate social responsibility theory,stakeholder theory and corporate sustainable development theory,so as to form a logical chain of "corporate social responsibility-information disclosure-corporate sustainable development performance".In addition,considering the lack of a formal regulatory mechanism for corporate social responsibility information disclosure at this stage,this thesis analyzes the moderating role of external media supervision in the relationship between corporate social responsibility and corporate sustainable development performance based on the theory of information asymmetry,and incorporates it into the theoretical analysis framework.The main research contents and conclusions of this thesis are as follows:First,this thesis reviews the literature on corporate social responsibility,information disclosure and corporate sustainable development performance,reviews the development process of corporate social responsibility theory,distinguishes between corporate social responsibility and information disclosure,and clarifies the conceptual connotation of corporate social responsibility and information disclosure.Based on the theory of sustainable development,the sustainable development performance of a company is defined from two aspects: broad and narrow,combined with the Maslow hierarchy of needs theory and the theory of enterprise life cycle,and the connotation of the company’s sustainable development performance in the narrow sense is defined from three dimensions: survival needs,growth needs and anti-risk needs according to the differences in the needs of different life cycle needs of companies.Second,on the basis of combing the classic statistical calculation methods of corporate social responsibility at home and abroad,combined with the actual situation of Hong Konglisted companies in fulfilling their social responsibilities,the ESG(environmental,social,and corporate governance)rating provided by MSCI is selected as the evaluation index of corporate social responsibility practice.Based on the sustainable development reports,social responsibility reports and ESG reports issued by Hong Kong-listed companies as data sources,the overall analysis framework and corresponding coding scheme are formulated using the content analysis method,and the data of corporate social responsibility information disclosure are collected from the content,extent,timeliness and transparency of information disclosure in accordance with the Environmental,Social and Governance Reporting Guidelines for Hong Kong-listed companies.Based on the principles of relevance,quantification,comparability and operability,the comprehensive index evaluation method is adopted to construct a narrow corporate sustainable development performance evaluation index system guided by the 17 sustainable development goals of the United Nations.Thirdly,after clarifying the calculation methods of the core variables,panel data analysis and multiple linear regression methods were used to further test the research hypothesis.Since Hong Kong,China has a more standardized system and stricter supervision on the non-financial information disclosure of listed companies,the 2017-2021 Hong Kong-listed companies were selected as the research object.The empirical results show that:(1)CSR has a significant positive impact on corporate sustainable development,(2)the impact of CSR with different institutional characteristics on corporate sustainability performance is not heterogeneous under the same CSR standard framework,and(3)the impact of corporate social responsibility on corporate sustainability performance in different industries is different,among which the difference between the consumer goods industry and the real estate and construction industry is the largest and significant,and the difference between the financial industry and group companies is the smallest and also significant.Fourthly,the mediating effect test method of causal stepwise regression is used to verify the mediating role of information disclosure in the impact of corporate social responsibility on the company’s sustainable development performance,and the Bootstrap test is further used to verify the three sub-dimensions of environmental information disclosure,social information disclosure and corporate governance information disclosure.The interaction effect test method was used to verify the moderating effect of media attention on corporate social responsibility on corporate social responsibility and corporate sustainable development performance.The results show that:(1)corporate social responsibility has a significant positive impact on information disclosure;(2)information disclosure has a significant negative impact on corporate sustainable development performance.The results of the mediating effect test show that information disclosure has a masking effect on corporate social responsibility and corporate sustainable development performance;and(3)media attention has no moderating effect on corporate social responsibility and corporate sustainable development performance.Finally,according to the conclusions of the study,the following policy suggestions are put forward from the levels of the government,enterprises and the public:(1)it is recommended that the government provide incentives and preferential policies to encourage enterprises to fulfill their social responsibilities,strengthen international cooperation and promote the international standardization process of corporate social responsibility information disclosure,and guide the public to pay attention to the importance of information disclosure through education and publicity,and set up a special agency to supervise the company’s non-financial information disclosure;(2)suggest that the company formulate a corporate social responsibility information disclosure policy and process,which details the scope of disclosure,the degree of disclosure,In addition,the company should identify the concerns of key stakeholders and communicate with them regularly to understand their expectations and concerns of the company,on this basis,identify key issues and social responsibility priorities to provide guidance and support for the company’s practices and information disclosure,and strictly abide by the norms of regulatory authorities to ensure that the ESG report format is uniform and concise,and the content is complete,relevant and comparable;(3)it is suggested that the media should strengthen the reporting and supervision of corporate social responsibility practices to improve the public’s awareness and supervision ability of corporate social responsibility;nongovernmental organizations can track and evaluate corporate social responsibility and information disclosure,and provide help and guidance to create a better information disclosure environment;Professional associations and training institutions should set up professional disciplines and courses for sustainable development to meet the needs of practical development and help enterprises achieve better results in social responsibility and sustainable development.In view of the above,this thesis adopts a research method combining theoretical analysis and empirical testing,clearly defines the conceptual connotation of corporate social responsibility,information disclosure and corporate sustainable development performance,and empirically examines the relationship between corporate social responsibility,information disclosure and corporate sustainable development performance with Hong Kong-listed companies with unique institutional backgrounds.Compared with similar literature studies at home and abroad,the possible innovations in this thesis are mainly reflected in the following three aspects:(1)the impact of corporate social responsibility on the sustainable development performance of companies in the narrow sense(survival needs,growth needs and anti-risk needs)is expanded,and the existing limitations of corporate social responsibility on the sustainable development performance of companies in the broad sense(environmental protection,social development and economic growth)and short-term economic performance of companies(such as ROI,ROA or Tobin’s)are expanded Q research boundaries;(2)empirically test the geographical heterogeneity of corporate social responsibility on corporate sustainable development performance,break through the traditional framework of existing studies that only test the impact of corporate social responsibility on corporate social responsibility in the same country or region,and provide a practical reference for the construction of unified international ESG reporting standards;(3)reveal the masking effect of information disclosure in the relationship between corporate social responsibility and corporate sustainable development performance,and deeply analyze the differential impact of voluntary information disclosure and normative information disclosure on corporate sustainable development performance.This study provides important empirical evidence for improving the quality of corporate social responsibility information disclosure and promoting corporate sustainable development.