Responsabilidade social e ambiental corporativa : determinantes da divulgação de informação voluntária

Abstract

Corporate social responsibility refers to social concerns related to environment, human resources and community involvement. In the current context, disclosure of social and environmental aspects still gives voluntarily, and the disclosure of these practices have been recurrent in corporate environment. However, voluntary disclosure of social and environmental information does not occur homogeneously, some companies choose to show a greater amount of information and with richer details. Aware of this, this study aimed to identify the determinant factors of voluntary disclosure of social and environmental information of the companies, in the period 2010-2012. A multi-theoretical perspective was used as support for the possible determinant factors of social and/or environmental voluntary disclosure. The theories used were: the theory of voluntary disclosure and theories based on social policy. From the theories and previous studies, 6 hypotheses about the possible determinant factors of social voluntary disclosure (size, ownership concentration, profitability, leverage, regulated sector and reputation) and 8 hypotheses regarding the potential environmental determinant factors of voluntary disclosure (size, ownership concentration, profitability, leverage, regulated sector, reputation, audit and activity sector) were built. Social and environmental voluntary disclosure was measured by a metric of 80 items, which made possible obtaining indexes. The universe of this research were publicly traded companies listed on BM&FBovespa, in the periods from 2010 to 2012. The sample was composed of 100 companies listed on BM&FBovespa with more shares traded during the 12 months of 2012. As for econometric models, random effects panel estimated by GLS was used, with the dependent variable social and/or environmental disclosure indexes, and independent variables probable determinant factors. Results suggested the size of the company, profitability, reputation and the regulated sector were considered determinant factors of social voluntary disclosure. About environmental voluntary disclosure, results indicated that company size, profitability, good business reputation, specific government regulations, auditing firms and companies belonging to sectors that perform economic activities of considerable environmental impacts were determinant factors of environmental voluntary disclosure.