Title: Social responsibility disclosure in corporate annual reports: evidence from the Gulf Cooperation Council countries

Authors: Hussein Khasharmeh, Mishiel Said Suwaidan

Addresses: Department of Accounting, University of Bahrain, P.O. Box 32038, Bahrain. ' Department of Accounting, Yarmouk University, P.O. Box 566, Irbid, Jordan

Abstract: The objectives of this study are two-fold: 1) to evaluate social responsibility disclosure in the annual reports of manufacturing companies listed in the financial markets of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC); 2) to examine the impact of a number of company variables on the extent of disclosure of this information. To achieve these objectives, a disclosure index was developed and applied to the annual reports of 60 manufacturing companies listed in the financial markets of the six countries included in the GCC. The results indicate that, on average, a company disclosed about 26% of the 45 items included in the index with only eight companies receiving disclosure scores of 40% or more. The results of regression analysis revealed that the size of the company and the auditing firm (international or local) are major variables in explaining variation in the extent of social responsibility disclosure between the sample companies.

Keywords: social responsibility disclosure; company attributes; content analysis; corporate annual reports; Gulf Cooperation Council; GCC countries; manufacturing firms; corporate social responsibility; CSR.

DOI: 10.1504/IJAAPE.2010.036150

International Journal of Accounting, Auditing and Performance Evaluation, 2010 Vol.6 No.4, pp.327 - 345

Published online: 25 Oct 2010 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article