Disclose or not disclose: determinants of social reporting for STOXX Europe 600 firms

Building on prior literature, determinants of disclosing a social report are examined. As such, reports prepared with the help of the guidelines developed by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) are used in this paper. The sample consists of STOXX Europe 600 firms. Thus, we are able to analyse country specific effects based on a broad sample of companies. The analysis reveals that size, media, country specific factors, industry, and sustainability performance have a significant influence on whether firms disclose social reports or not. As has been stated in previous literature risk, capital structure and financial performance seem to have a negligible influence on this kind of voluntary reporting. Consequently, while this study confirms some previous findings, it also rejects or undermines certain others and adds sustainability performance for the disclosure of GRI reports as an additional possible determinant. The results show that companies disclose due to a feeling of responsibility or of complying with the expectations of stakeholders and shareholders for information rather than as a means to reduce cost of capital. Copyright Springer-Verlag 2010