Research On The Impact Of Financial Report Comment Letters On Voluntary Corporate Social Responsibility Disclosure

The financial report comment letter is a comment letter issued by the regulator to help investors obtain complete and accurate information for the unclear and incomplete content in the financial report.When a company receives a financial report comment letter,it means that its information disclosure is flawed.In addition to changing the financial information disclosure strategy,the enterprise may also adjust the non-financial information disclosure strategy that is an important supplement to financial information.As an important form of non-financial information,corporate social responsibility information is an important channel linking stakeholders and enterprises.It can not only transmit the internal information of the enterprise,but also affect the reputation and image of the enterprise in the market.So,when a company receives a financial report comment letter,will the company actively disclose corporate social responsibility information to restore its reputation? Or does the company choose not to disclose corporate social responsibility information for costbenefit balance under the information improvement and governance of the financial report comment letter?Therefore,we explored the corporate social responsibility disclosure strategy based on the situation that the company receives a financial report comment letter and the quality of information disclosure is doubted.We take Ashare listed companies from 2015 to 2020 as the research sample to explore whether and how the financial report comment letter affects the voluntary corporate social responsibility disclosure and explored whether the impact is different among firms in different processes of marketization.Further,we also explored the influence mechanism of financial report comment letters,the influence of the inquiry characteristics on the voluntary corporate social responsibility disclosure,and the impact of financial report comment letters on the quality of corporate social responsibility disclosure.Our main findings are as follows:(1)When a company receives a financial report comment letter,it is more reluctant to voluntarily disclose corporate social responsibility information.The above effect is more obvious when the more inquiries are received,the more questions are asked,and the intermediary is required to express audit opinions;(2)Compared with regions with a slower marketization process,companies receiving financial report comment letters in regions with a faster marketization process are more reluctant to voluntarily disclose corporate social responsibility information;(3)Financial report comment letters mainly affect the voluntary corporate social responsibility disclosure through information effects and governance effects.In a company with low information transparency and serious agency issues,companies that receive financial report comment letters are even more reluctant to voluntarily disclose corporate social responsibility information;(4)The financial report comment letter can improve the quality of corporate social responsibility disclosure.For enterprises that are forced to disclose CSR reports,the financial report comment letter can inhibit the management’s impression management behavior of CSR reports and improve disclosure quality,but for enterprises that voluntarily disclose CSR reports,the impact is not significant.This paper reveals the relationship between the financial report comment letter and voluntary corporate social responsibility disclosure,which has brought important enlightenment to the management of comment letter and corporate social responsibility disclosure.