: With the international community’s increasing concern for social and environmental problems, the fulfilment and disclosure of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been advocated and promoted across the world. Forestry companies, which are particularly sensitive to environmental and social issues, are increasingly developing and improving their levels of CSR disclosure. However, information on emerging country contexts is still lacking. To fill this gap, this study focuses on Chinese forestry companies’ CSR disclosure and introduces new disclosure indices through content analysis of annual reports by listed companies between 2011–2015. It then builds a correlation analysis of the factors influencing these companies’ disclosure indices in order to gain a better understanding of the current situation for CSR implementation by forestry companies in emerging economies like China. Although context-specific, our findings can provide a reference for researchers and policy makers, and promote sustainable development via improved CSR disclosure by forestry companies, especially in developing regions.

Understanding how managers perceive risks in the decision-making process of corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure is vital, especially in sectors with high social and environmental demands on sustainability. The main aim of this study was to explore the impact of managerial risk perceptions and influencing factors on CSR disclosure in the forestry sector of China and to improve the sustainable development of forestry. Utilizing survey data of 214 managers from Chinese forestry enterprises, we analyzed how manager backgrounds, including six variables (gender, age, education level, degree major, number of years working as a manager, and work experience) related to the managers’ risk perceptions of CSR disclosure via a two-stage model. The analyses of the two-stage model revealed that the influence factors differ in the two stages of risk perception. According to our results, influencing factors were not the same at various stages of the CSR reporting process. This requires decision makers to take practical driving factors into account and select managers with different characteristics to carry out the CSR disclosure of forestry enterprises.

With economic globalization and the diffusion of corporate social responsibility (CSR), firms are increasingly moving from using reactive to more proactive strategies in their environmental, social, and governance (ESG) strategies. Wood-based panel processing enterprises, which are particularly sensitive to environmental and social issues, are increasingly developing their CSR strategies. Previous research on environmental protection and responsibility in this industry focused mainly on single aspects, such as the control of volatile noxious gases, while neglecting comprehensive social environmental responsibility strategies, especially in emerging economies. This article adopts a case study approach that analyzes the main CSR strategies of four leading Chinese wood-based panel processing enterprises. The study provides a reference for similar enterprises in China and other developing economies on CSR/ESG strategies. Even though context specific, our findings can provide further impetus for research and discussion on other emerging economies that share similar institutional characteristics.