Factors Influencing Voluntary Annual Report Disclosures By U.S., U.K. and Continental European Multinational Corporations

Meek, Gary K.; Roberts, Clare; Gray, Sidney J.

doi:10.1057/palgrave.jibs.8490186

Cited by 955 publications

(716 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…From the results, it can be inferred that, in general, European companies provide significantly more strategic and social information than American companies do. This is consistent with previous studies (Meek et al, 1995) which have found that the voluntary disclosure of non-financial information appears to be a particularly European phenomenon, so that both UK and Continental European companies provide more information than American companies. Furthermore, a simple mean comparison test and a one-way analysis of variance was performed to verify whether there was a significant difference in the extent of disclosure between UK and Continental European companies.…”

Section: Multivariate Analysissupporting

confidence: 93%

Sustainability Disclosure and Reputation: A Comparative Study

Michelon

2011

Corp Reputation Rev

224

203

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Drawing on legitimacy theory, we discuss that a company's reputation is a determinant of sustainability disclosure. Specifically, we consider the concept of reputation into three dimensions for analysis: stakeholders' commitment, financial performance and media exposure. This paper differs from previous social and environmental reporting studies in that it investigates both internal and external contextual factors that influence disclosure practice. We claim that companies with a good financial performance, that are adopting an active strategic position towards stakeholders and that are exposed to significant public pressure are more likely to use sustainability disclosure in order to communicate their legitimacy to operate to stakeholders. Moreover the paper analyses a wide range of corporate reports for their social and environmental content using an international sample that allows for a comparison of disclosure practices among Continental European, UK and USA companies. Our results show that stakeholder commitment and media exposure are positively associated with sustainability disclosure. Moreover, we find evidence that the drivers of disclosure vary by information type.

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Section: Multivariate Analysissupporting

confidence: 93%

Sustainability Disclosure and Reputation: A Comparative Study

Michelon

2011

Corp Reputation Rev

224

203

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“…For example, the degree and nature of external finance is likely to influence the demands placed on corporate governance for transparency or independence. Meeks et al (1995) find different patterns of disclosure contingent on firm size, debtequity ratios, country of incorporation, and international listing. Likewise, smaller and younger firms may have less need of these governance mechanisms to the degree that their operations are more focused and easier to monitor through hands-on involvement.…”

Section: Contingenciesmentioning

confidence: 83%

An Organizational Approach to Comparative Corporate Governance: Costs, Contingencies, and Complementarities

Aguilera

Filatotchev

Gospel

et al. 2008

Organization Science

650

219

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This is the accepted version of the paper.This version of the publication may differ from the final published version.  We would like to thank the UK Department for Trade and Industry with support for the research on which this study was based. The authors would like to thank the participants of seminars and workshops at Cass Business School, University of Groningen, University of Auckland, UK AIB Chapter (King's College London), Copenhagen Business School, the editor and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier drafts. The authors are listed alphabetically and contributed equally to this paper. Permanent repository link AN ORGANIZATIONAL APPROACH TO COMPARATIVE CORPORATE GOVERNANCE: COSTS, CONTINGENCIES, AND COMPLEMENTARITIES ABSTRACTThis paper develops an organizational approach to corporate governance and assesses the effectiveness of corporate governance and implications for policy. Most corporate governance research focuses on a universal link between corporate governance practices (e.g. board structure, shareholder activism) and performance outcomes, but neglects how interdependences between the organization and diverse environments lead to variations in the effectiveness of different governance practices. In contrast to such 'closed systems' approaches, we propose a framework based on 'open systems' approaches to organizations which examines these organizational interdependencies in terms of the costs, contingencies, and complementarities of different corporate governance practices. These three sets of organizational factors are useful in analyzing the effectiveness of corporate governance in diverse organizational environments. We also explore how costs, contingencies, and complementarities impact effectiveness of different governance aspects through the use of stylized cases and discuss the implications for different approaches to policy such as 'soft-law' or 'hard law'.

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“…Company size is measured by the number of employees and turnover (Belkaoui and Karpik, 1989;Meek et al, 1995;Prencipe, 2004;Roberts, 1992;Trotman and Bradley, 1981).…”

Section: Independent Variablesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Such an extension builds upon the assumption that companies do have wider responsibilities than simply to make money for their shareholders" (Gray et al, 1987: p. 9). Likewise, according to Meek et al (1995), voluntary NFD reflects "...disclosures in excess of requirements, representing free choices on the part of company management to provide accounting and other information deemed relevant to the decision needs of users of their annual reports" (Meek et al, 1995: p. 555). In line with the multidimensionality of the corporate social responsibility (CSR) construct, NFD encompasses a diverse range of performance aspects related (among others) to labour practices, human rights protection, product responsibility efforts and environmental management measures.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%