Research On The Impact Of Corporate Social Responsibility Information Disclosure On Commercial Credit Financing

The 19 th Party Congress report for the first time put forward the expression "high-quality development",in this transformation stage,enterprises have adopted the way to enhance innovation capabilities,create high-quality products,these business operations are inseparable from the support of capital.However,the impact of the new epidemic and the supply-side reform has significantly reduced the availability of financing for Chinese enterprises,which has hindered their development.Commercial credit,as an important alternative financing method,allows for a secondary flow of funds between enterprises and injects new vitality into corporate financing.At the same time,based on the new stage of development,the state has put forward new requirements on the responsibilities undertaken by enterprises,indicating that a balance between economic and social benefits is the right thing to do for the development of enterprises.The cost of disclosing social responsibility information not only demonstrates a high sense of responsibility and good business ethics,but also the economic strength of the company to sustain the construction of corporate social responsibility.Commercial credit financing depends on the level of trust between the company and its suppliers,and trust comes mainly from the quality and competence of the company,which is exactly what corporate social responsibility(CSR)disclosure shows.Therefore,the relationship between the disclosure of CSR information and commercial credit financing is an issue worth studying.Using stakeholder theory,information asymmetry theory,signaling theory,organizational legitimacy theory,and reputation theory,this paper investigates the following questions:(1)whether disclosure of social responsibility-related information by enterprises can release positive signals,strengthen ties with stakeholders,meet legitimacy requirements,and thus expand commercial credit financing;(2)whether disclosing high-quality social responsibility information can force enterprises to strengthen their own internal and external governance,enhance their core competitiveness and improve their reputation,thus playing an "insurance" role and gaining the affirmation of suppliers;(3)whether enterprises that voluntarily disclose social responsibility reports have stronger moral motivation and altruistic tendency,and are more likely to obtain commercial credit financing than enterprises that are compelled to disclose;(4)whether the disclosure of high quality social responsibility information enables suppliers to take a more comprehensive view of the company and restrain the unethical behaviour of the management,so as to improve the quality of accounting information,thereby contributing to commercial credit financing.Using 20,658 listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen A-shares from 2012-2021 as the sample for the study and a fixed-effects model controlling for industry and year for regression analysis,the empirical results show that:(1)CSR information disclosure behaviours can secure more commercial credit financing for enterprises;(2)the higher the quality of CSR information disclosure,the more commercial credit financing they can obtain;(3)Compared with mandatory disclosure methods,enterprises that voluntarily disclose CSR reports can obtain more commercial credit financing.(4)High quality disclosure of CSR information can lead to larger commercial credit financing by improving the quality of accounting information.The innovation of this article lies in the following aspects:(1)the research perspective,the existing research shows that "corporate social responsibility" includes: social responsibility commitment,performance,information disclosure behaviour,information disclosure degree,information disclosure quality,etc.This leads to different focus on corporate social responsibility and different ways of measuring it,which leads to different conclusions.Conclusions This article cuts from the perspective of social responsibility information disclosure,divides social responsibility information disclosure into three aspects: behaviour,quality and willingness,and studies the relationship with commercial credit financing;(2)whether suppliers provide commercial credit to enterprises mainly depends on the financial reliability of enterprises,but the professionalism of accounting information and surplus manageable lead to suppliers not knowing their financial reliability.In contrast,CSR information disclosure can not only reflect the economic efficiency of enterprises,but also highlight good business ethics of enterprises,and as an important supplement to financial information,it provides new ideas for suppliers to judge the quality of accounting information.Therefore,this paper introduces the quality of accounting information as a mediating variable to enrich the influence mechanism between social responsibility information disclosure and commercial credit financing,giving new practical significance to the disclosure of CSR information.(3)While most of the existing studies on business credit have focused on internal factors at the micro level and external factors at the macro level,CSR information disclosure,as a "signal",provides a channel to understand more about enterprises from the perspective of informal institutions and expands the influencing factors of business credit financing.