Department
Management and Entrepreneurship
Additional Department
School of Accountancy
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-1-2017
Abstract
Standalone corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports vary considerably in the content of information released due to their voluntary nature. In this study, we develop a disclosure score based on the tone, readability, length, and the numerical and horizon content of CSR report narratives, and examine the relationship between the CSR disclosure scores and analyst forecasts. We find that CSR reporters with high disclosure scores are associated with more accurate forecasts, whereas low score CSR reporters are not associated with more accurate forecasts than firms who do not issue CSR reports. The findings are robust to controlling for firm characteristics including CSR activity ratings and financial narratives. The findings are driven by experienced CSR reporters rather than first-time CSR reporters. Together, our findings suggest that the content of CSR reports helps to improve analyst forecast accuracy, and this relationship is more pronounced for CSR reports with more substantial content.
Journal Title
Journal of Business Ethics
Journal ISSN
1573-0697
Volume
140
First Page
1
Last Page
24
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
10.1007/s10551-016-3429-7