What drives the fledgling practice of social and environmental reporting by Chinese companies listed in Hong Kong?

Are the Western-developed theoretical perspectives of public legitimation, government-imposed political costs, media agenda setting, management strategic posturing with stakeholders and economic performance able to explain the fledgling practice of corporate social and environmental reporting (CSER) by Chinese listed companies? To address these questions, this study provides evidence from annual reports and other public data of the top 56 companies on the H-share and Red-chip lists of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Quantitative and qualitative CSER disclosure scores and surrogate measures for elements of legitimacy and stakeholder theories (namely, size of company, media attention, extent of charitable donations and equity systematic risk) are empirically modelled. The results find that elements of legitimacy theory are less effective than stakeholder theory in explaining voluntary CSER by H-share and Red-chip companies. The conclusion is that Western-derived theories only partially hold up as relevant drivers of voluntary CSER by Chinese companies. The reasons proffered are that government influence through appointments to corporate boards, government focus on economic performance, corporate dealings with the media and management cultural-orientation related to strategic posturing in China differ from what is seen in the West.