Corporate social responsibility (CSR) in developing countries has recently received increasing attention, and scholars have pointed to the strong contextuality of CSR in the respective regions. Regarding the latter, however, sub-Saharan Africa has been scrutinized only marginally by academia. Moreover, empirical research on the impact of the institutional context has been scant, despite its attributed importance for CSR. Our article seeks to fill a part of this research gap by investigating CSR website reporting of 211 companies in seven sub-Saharan countries. The study's aim is twofold: First, we identify to what extent sub-Saharan companies report on CSR and which contents they disclose. Second, by building on institutional theory, we investigate how the socioeconomic and political environments influence CSR reporting. For this purpose, we examine the impact of countrylevel and company-level determinants. We find that the sample African companies' CSR efforts focus strongly on local philanthropy and therefore

This paper focuses on audit market concentration of listed firms which is characterized by an oligopoly of "Big Four" audit firms. Hence a state of the art analysis of the status quo of concentration measurement has been conducted on the audit market from an international perspective. Thereby risks and causes of concentration development have been assessed along with the current regulatory proposals of the European Commission (EC). After a discussion of conventional measurement methods of audit market concentration, our paper gives a review of previous empirical results of audit market concentration for EU and non EU-member states. Results show that EC reforms cannot clearly be related to increase audit quality but increasing transaction costs.

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are a major institutional force in promoting sustainable development, especially in institutional environments where governments have often not been able to assume the role of development agent. Despite this importance, the approach of Latin American NGOs to sustainability has received only little attention so far and respective research is scarce. To address this research gap, we conducted an online survey of 306 Latin American NGOs, investigating their understanding of sustainability and how they seek to transmit it. Due to the lack of previous empirical studies, our study is exploratory in nature and examines eight research categories: (1) NGOs definition of sustainability; (2) the role they see for themselves in its promotion, (3) dimensions of sustainability judged as important, (4) stakeholders and (5) partners considered, (6) motives for pursuing sustainability, (7) forms of implementation, and (8) measures regarded as necessary for spreading it further. Our findings are discussed against the institutional environment of Latin America, as we assume that the understanding and transmission of sustainability is contextual in nature. Our study shows that the sustainability concept of the sample NGOs is broad and that they take a wide variety of efforts for implementing it. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses confirmed the reliability and validity of the eight-component-model we applied for our study. Thus, it serves as a valuable starting point for future research into the ''terra incognita'' of Latin American NGOs' approach to sustainability.Résumé Les organisations non gouvernementales (ONG) représentent une force institutionnelle majeure dans la promotion du développement durable, surtout dans les milieux institutionnels où les gouvernements ont rarement été en mesure d'assumer le rôle d'agent du développement. Malgré cette importance, l'approche des ONG latines américaines face à la durabilité n'a reçu qu'une attention mitigée à ce jour, et les recherches connexes se font rares. Pour combler cette brèche, nous avons mené un sondage en ligne auprès de 306 ONG latines américaines portant sur leur compréhension du concept de durabilité et la façon dont elles entendent le transmettre. Puisque les études empiriques antérieures sont insuffisantes, notre étude est de nature exploratoire et se penche sur huit catégories de recherche : 1) la définition que les ONG donnent à la durabilité; 2) le rôle qu'elles jugent jouer dans sa promotion; 3) les dimensions de la durabilité considérées importantes; 4) les intervenants; et 5) partenaires potentiellement impliqués; 6) les motifs avancés pour la quête de la durabilité; 7) les formes de mise en oeuvre; et 8) les mesures jugées nécessaires pour l'émanciper davantage. Nos résultats sont exposés dans le contexte du milieu institutionnel de l'Amérique latine, car nous présumons que la compréhension et la transmission du concept de durabilité sont de nature contextuelle. Notre étude démontre que le concept de durabilité des ONG...

Expedited by the financial crisis and increased stakeholder activism, the demand for reliable and accountable business practices and transparency has gained momentum in the current corporate social responsibility (CSR) debate. Consequently, companies have started to become aware of the increasing importance of conveying increased transparency and accountability to stakeholders, gaining their legitimacy and establishing a positive public image through adequate CSR reporting. Since it is obligatory to disclose information on corporate financial performance and on companies’ environmental and social impact in France, this paper addresses how transparent French listed companies of the CAC 40 communicate their CSR engagement externally. To turn the latent construct ‘transparency of CSR reporting’ into a measurable value, we conduct qualitative content analysis based on the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) guidelines. Assuming mandatory CSR reporting to increase companies’ CSR transparency in general, most of the companies communicate their corporate profile, strategy and management broadly. Whereas companies report the environmental dimension most frequently, they refer only marginally to the economic and social dimensions.

So far, no study has investigated determinants that shape corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication in mission statements, as previous studies have focused on CSR reports and homepages. Our study, which is based on institutional theory, fills this gap. By conducting a directed content analysis of the statements of 200 listed companies in the United States and India, we examine the content conveyed with respect to 5 CSR dimensions, the 5 most prominent stakeholder groups, and additional components of CSR mission statements. Moreover, we examine whether Unted States and Indian companies' CSR communication varies according to their (a) home country, (b) industry affiliation, (c) degree of internationalization, (d) company size, (e) profitability, (f) founding year, (g) length of the CSR mission statement, and (h) compliance with the guidelines of the Global Reporting Initiative. Whereas the findings reveal that the companies' home country, degree of internationalization, and size have no considerable bearing on their CSR communication, we evidence that their communication can be explained by their industry affiliation, the profitability ratio return on assets, founding year, length of the statement, and compliance with the Global Reporting Initiative guidelines. Moreover, we explain the cross-country conformity of CSR communication by a convergence towards global and universal CSR communication approaches.