understanding of the determinants of CSR disclosure, we categorized the studies into those on developed countries
(having GDP per capita income above $12 276) and developing countries (World Bank, 2012).
CSR Disclosure in Developed Countries
CSR disclosure studies in developed countries predominantly focused on North America (Canada, United States),
Australia, and North-Western Europe (e.g. UK, Denmark, Finland, and France) and paid less attention to Southern
Europe (e.g. Italy and Spain) and Eastern Europe (e.g. Poland and Slovenia), which falls in line with the results in
Fifka’s (2013) meta study.
CSR disclosure studies conducted in developed countries predominantly used the content analysis research
method in determining the factors influencing CSR disclosure (Table 2), again in line with the Fifka (2013) study.
Furthermore, these studies largely examined the determinants of environmental disclosure or CSR disclosure,
using quantitative (e.g. extent or level) measures (Table 2), and paid little attention to other dimensions of CSR dis-
closure including human resources, community involvement, and products and consumer disclosure. The
inferences drawn from the review of existing CSR disclosure studies in developed countries (Table 2) accord with
the previous observation that researchers have paid more attention to environmental disclosure issues (Mathews,
1997; Gray, 2002; Parker, 2005, 2011). Most of the reviewed studies used a specific theory (or a combination of the-
ories) to explain the determinants/motivations of CSR disclosure (Table 2), with legitimacy theory being the domi-
nant theoretical lens.
The factors examined in the social and environmental disclosure studies conducted in developed countries
mainly fall into the categories of company characteristics and general contextual factors (Table 2). Below we discuss
these factors in turn.
Company Characteristics
In this category, the most frequently examined determinants are company size and industry sector (Table 2). The
studies in developed countries are coherent and have found that company size has a significant positive relationship
with social and environmental disclosure (Brammer & Pavelin, 2008; Reverte, 2009; Chih et al., 2010; Hou &
Reber, 2011; Bouten et al., 2011). Similar to company size, the studies in developed countries have found a strong
relationship between the industry sector and disclosure (Cormier et al., 2005; Brammer & Pavelin, 2008; Reverte,
2009; Tagesson et al., 2009; Hou & Reber, 2011; Bouten et al., 2011). The third most commonly examined
determinant of disclosure is corporate financial performance, where some of the studies found a significant positive
relationship (Patten, 1992; Cormier & Magnan, 1999; Tagesson et al., 2009), while some found an insignificant
relationship (Patten, 1991; Hackston & Milne, 1996; Cormier et al., 2005; Reverte, 2009; Chih et al., 2010). In
addition to this, other company characteristics, for example dependence on capital markets (Cormier & Magnan,
2003), media social visibility (Nikolaeva & Bicho, 2011), and age of assets (Cormier et al., 2005) were found to
positively influence disclosure. However, the results on systematic risk characteristics were found to be inconsistent
in developed countries as some studies found a significant positive relationship (Belkaoui & Karpik, 1989; Cormier
et al., 2005), while some showed a significant negative relationship (Roberts, 1992; Toms, 2002) with CSR
disclosure.
General Contextual Factors
Disclosure studies in developed countries examined a range of external factors influencing CSR disclosure (Table 2).
Studies have shown that differences in national contextual factors resulted in the variation in CSR practices in gen-
eral and CSR disclosure, in particular (Adams et al., 1998; Laan Smith et al., 2005; Matten & Moon, 2008; Jackson &
Apostolakou, 2010). Most notably, comparative institutional studies have revealed substantial differences between
the United States and Europe in terms of the effects of the national institutional context on CSR (Doh & Guay,
2006; Matten & Moon, 2008; Sison, 2009), while others also found significant institutional variation between Eu-
ropean countries (Schlierer et al., 2012; Fassin et al., 2015; Knudsen et al., 2015). Laan Smith et al. (2005) conducted a
comparative CSR disclosure study of Norway/Denmark and the United States and found that contextual factors (i.e.,
ownership structures, governance systems, and cultural systems) resulted in a significant variation in CSR disclosure
275Determinants of CSR Disclosure
Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment Corp. Soc. Responsib. Environ. Mgmt. 24, 273–294 (2017)
DOI: 10.1002/csr
15353966, 2017, 4, Downloaded from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/csr.1410 by Cochrane Netherlands, Wiley Online Library on [13/02/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License