Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between environmental reporting and corporate governance attributes of companies in Australia.Design/methodology/approach: The paper adopts a quantitative analysis approach. It examines the 2008 annual reports of the largest 100 Australian firms listed on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) to determine the amount of environmental reporting – these data are compared with various corporate governance measures.Findings: Analysis found a significant positive relationship between the extent of environmental reporting and the proportions of independent and female directors on a board. The analysis did not, however, support a negative relationship between the extent of environmental reporting and institutional investors and board size as has been previously predicted, rather, it showed a positive relationship.Originality/value: This paper offers insights to both regulators and company strategists. Regulators such as the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) could consider expanding its Corporate Governance Council guidelines to include consideration of the environment, which is increasingly considered to be an important aspect of corporate social responsibility, and one of the responsibilities of the board of directors. In addition, for companies which include a commitment to the environment in their mission and strategies, it suggests consideration of the impact of board structure and composition is important as both of these are shown to have a significant effect on the amount of environmental information disclosed by companies.

Many social accounting researchers refer to environmental pressure groups as being a major influence on companies′ decisions to disclose social information. Such a claim is, however, to date unsubstantiated. Virtually no empirical evidence has been produced which confirms or refutes this proposition. Similarly there is no literature on pressure groups′ interest in, or reaction to, corporate social disclosure (CSD). Provides the first, albeit exploratory, investigation of such pressure groups and their potential influence on the production of CSD. Results show that pressure groups are users of CSD and do attempt to influence companies′ disclosure practices. The environmental movement considers current CSD to be insufficient and low in credibility. The preferred corporate social report (for pressure groups) would include narratives and quantified terms, would be in the annual report and would be prepared by, certified by, and/or held by a body external to the company.

Purpose: This paper aims to examine the relationship between corporate governance, in particular board diversity, and corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting among the top 150 listed companies in Australia over a three-year period.Design/methodology/approach: The quantitative analysis involving a longitudinal study is used where content analysis is undertaken to analyse the extent of CSR disclosures in annual reports. Regression analysis using panel data is used to analyse the potential association between CSR disclosure and five important board diversity measures, specifically independence, tenure, gender, multiple directorships and overall diversity measure.Findings: The results based on the regression analysis reveal that three of the board diversity attributes (gender, tenure and multiple directorships) and the overall diversity measure have the potential to influence CSR reporting. The relationship between independent/non-executive directors and CSR disclosure however is unclear. In addition, three of the control variables (firm size, industry and CEO duality) are found to have some influence on CSR disclosure, whereas board size and profitability are found to be insignificant. The results also indicate the existence of some possible interaction effects between gender and multiple directorships.Originality/value: The paper has implications for companies, for policymakers and for the professional development needs of board members. Australian companies should consider identifying board attributes that enhance CSR disclosures, as it has been shown in previous studies that CSR disclosure in Australia is low when compared to other developed countries. Moreover, given that there is such limited research linking board diversity and CSR disclosure, the results of this paper provide scope for further research. Moreover the paper contributes to the existing literature on board composition and CSR disclosure by extending the literature to board diversity and provides preliminary evidence of the influence of board diversity on CSR disclosure in Australia.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the voluntary social and environmental disclosures made in the annual reports of Rothmans Ltd between the years of 1955 and 1999. The first part of the paper focuses on defining legitimacy theory as it has been used in accounting research, extending the current model of legitimacy that predominates, and discussing the potential of a resource‐based approach to testing the theory.Design/methodology/approach: A qualitative and quantitative approach to analysing annual report disclosures is presented, and this is one of the few studies to operationalise the variables under study as measures of resource flows.Findings: The paper considers legitimacy theory in light of disclosures made by Rothmans. An initial analysis provides qualitative examples of expected attempts to legitimatise the corporation given the threat posed by the smoking and health debate. Further analysis conducted using a quantitative measure of resource flows controlled by one stakeholder group, contradicts those expected when compared with previous studies, and as a result of this an alternative conceptualisation of legitimacy theory is proposed.Research limitations/implications: The paper considers one company in one industry and provides evidence from limited stakeholders groups. The results have implications for further research on social and environmental reporting that use a legitimacy framework.Originality/value: The paper provides one of the few studies to attempt to measure resource flows in order to proxy stakeholder influence on reporting. This therefore provides an alternative to the more common measures of legitimacy used in previous studies. These have predominantly been based on researcher judgement of the categorised text to determine whether they fit certain “legitimacy” criteria.