The Impact of Audit Committee Characteristics on Corporate Social Responsibility Disclosure

Abstract

This thesis fills the literature gap, adding novelties, and therefore, shedding light on inconclusive results in previous research concerning the effect of Audit Committee (AC) and board characteristics on Corporate Social Responsibility Disclosure (CSRD) in four interrelated articles. The first article (chapter 2) is the first study that presents a full picture of the board-CSR field by using a combination of two methodologies, bibliometric and social network analysis. Thus, it maps the knowledge of preceding works and suggests new avenues for future investigations to connect board characteristics, Corporate Social Responsibility Performance (CSRP), and CSRD. This article analysed 242 articles published on Web of Science database (WoS) journals . Depending on the same sampled articles used in the first article, the second article (chapter 3) reviewed the previous board-CSR literature by applying a content analysis method. By doing so, this article offers a novel picture of the most critical drivers of CSRP/CSRD and provide constructive suggestions to guide future research. The first and second articles' main results suggest that little research on the board and CSR field have studied other board variables such as AC characteristics. In addition to that, CSR strategies are forming from several combinations of the board attributes and consider one dimension to be insufficient to generate an effective strategy. In this context, it must be pointed out that there is more than one best possible characteristics combination to achieve higher levels of CSRD. Therefore, building on the first and second articles, the third article (chapter 4) fills the literature gap, adding novelties, showing evidence from the European context and, consequently, shedding light on inconclusive results in preceding literature concerning the effect of AC and board characteristics on CSRD by applying a novel research methodology (fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA)). Furthermore, responding to the second article recommendations to further examine the link between board characteristics and the decisions to obtain Corporate Social Responsibility Assurance (CSRA) report, the fourth article (chapter 5) test the effect of AC attributes (namely AC financial expert, AC independence, AC meetings, and AC size) on the adoption of CSRA. The third article used a sample of the top 69 non-financial European companies (based on market capitalisation) for 2016-2018. In comparison, the fourth article used a sample of European companies listed on STOXX Europe 600 over 2011-2018. This broader sample has been selected to choose a larger number of CSRA observations during the study period. European firms were specifically chosen because they are considered leaders in obtaining CSRA reports.

The Impact of Voluntary Disclosure on the Financial Performance of Industrial Companies Operating in the City of Hebron

“…Voluntary disclosure also refers to "additional information provided by companies in addition to mandatory information, in order to reduce information asymmetry between the leader and the investor. It is also considered an external mechanism to control leaders, protect shareholders, and reduce agency costs arising from information asymmetry between insiders and outsiders is defined as "disclosure that exceeds the recommended disclosure under (mandatory) law, and is optional by managers with the aim of increasing the organization's visibility and value with respect to target users [5]. It is also described as strategic business behavior [6].…”

“…To answer the third question, the calculation averages and standard deviations of the paragraphs of the study dealing with the degree of impact of disclosure of research and development activities in industrial companies operating in the city of Hebron on the financial performance from the point of view of the sample members ranked by importance to show the most prominent, as shown in table No. (5). To ascertain the significance of the disclosure of R&D activities in industrial companies operating in Hebron, the researcher tested the third hypothesis as follows:…”

Audit committee attributes, board of director’s independence and energy disclosure for environmental sustainability in Nigeria

“…Zaman et al (2021) assert that independence of AC improved sustainability assurance quality. Many studies have documented a positive and significant results on relationship between AC independence and firm’s disclosure level (Samaha et al , 2015; Agyei-mensah, 2018; Ashfaq and Rui, 2019; Adegboye et al , 2020; Arif et al , 2020; Budiharta, 2020; Raimo et al , 2020; Dwekat, 2021).…”

“…However, it is expected that the committee attributes will ensure that financial statements disclose relevant environmental information to cater the needs of relevant users. Nevertheless, prior studies (Appuhami and Tashakor, 2017; Alnabsha et al , 2018; Chariri et al , 2018; Talpur, 2018; Bicer, 2019; Chijoke-mgbame et al , 2020; Velte, 2020; Dwekat, 2021; Pucheta-Martínez et al , 2021; Jibril and Maikano, 2022) have been conducted with aim to assess the impact of AC attributes on environmental disclosure. Thus, the findings of these studies are mixed, as some reported positive relationship between AC attributes and environmental disclosure, some studies reported positive, negative relationship and other studies reported zero relationship.…”