Human resources disclosures by African and Caribbean companies

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which economically significant Caribbean and African firms provide human resources disclosures (HRD), and the factors related to their disclosure practices. It is motivated by the dearth of studies of HRD among firms in developing countries. Design/methodology/approach All companies with common shares listed on the main tier of the major stock exchanges in each country examined on December 31, 2013 as well as selected state enterprises were included in the study if their annual report, sustainability report or integrated report was available online. HRD was measured using an unweighted 174-item disclosure index. The research hypotheses were examined using multiple-regression analysis. Findings The level of HRD in the Caribbean and Southern Africa was relatively low (M=33.7 percent, SD=25.3 percent). The amount of HRD was related to organizational culture, firm size, industry affiliation, national governance environment and foreign influence. Geographical region, gender diversity and director independence were not statistically related to the amount of HRD. Practical implications Caribbean and African governments may need to implement incentives for economically significant companies to participate in targeted human resources (HR) development initiatives, to provide more comprehensive HR disclosures and incorporate HR consideration in their strategic decision making. Originality/value This is one of the first studies to compare the amount and determinants of HRD by economically significant Caribbean and African companies.

Human Resource Disclosures in Corporate Annual Reports of Insurance Companies: A Case of Developing Country

“…It is appeared that number of employees, foreign ownership and type of firm explained significantly to the human resource disclosures. These results were also supported by several empirical studies in the recent literature [28,39,80,81]. These implies that companies with higher number of employees and with foreign ownership are more likely to disclose human related information.…”

“…Foreign ownership is one of the most used variables to explain companies non-financial, voluntary disclosure [77]. The larger portion of foreign ownership would affect the disclosure policy of the company since the owner demand more human resources related information [28,80,81]. In addition, that the firms' more extensive disclosure may enable to reduce investor uncertainty and the firms' cost of capital [81].…”

Human Resource Disclosures in UK Corporate Annual Reports: To What Extent Do These Reflect Organisational Priorities Towards Labour?

“…Whether from an economic, ethical or corporate social responsibility perspective, there have been recurring concerns amongst government, accounting and human resource professional bodies, investors, civil society organisations, and academics on the extent to which (if at all) the contribution of employees is recognised in corporate accounting and disclosure models (Roslender et al 2004;Ejiogu and Ejiogu 2018;Bowrin 2018). In particular, the inability of mandatory accounting and financial reporting practice to address this gap has been viewed as a marginalisation of the firms' employee intellectual base, and the domination of capital over labour interests (Bowrin, 2018;Roslender and Stevenson 2009;Roslender et al 2015). Instead, some firms appear to have resorted to the use of voluntary and narrative disclosure of employee information, albeit the evidence is often subsumed within broader explorations of ethical, intellectual capital (IC), and social disclosures Guthrie 2004, 2005;Lin et al 2012;Samudhram et al 2014).…”

“…Our specific interest lies in the UK Labour government's attempt to formalise corporate HRD practice in the mid-2000s (Department of Trade andIndustry DTI 2003a, b) with the Accounting for People project; which was billed as a significant historical call for action (Roslender and Stevenson 2009;Roslender et al 2015, Bowrin 2018. Although there was much debate over several years in relation to this ultimately unsuccessful policy intervention (Stittle 2004;Roslender and Stevenson 2009), there has not been any empirical study of how UK companies responded to the prevailing social realities brought about by the government at the time.…”

“…An understanding of how and why disclosures evolved or not under previous calls for reform would provide a useful reference point for any more recent empirical explorations. Relatedly, Bowrin (2018) recently examines the case of HRDs, but these largely focus on cross-country, rather than firm-level, determinants (e.g. national governance and foreign influence) for companies operating in several African and Caribbean countries.…”