There is extant research on theorization, conceptualization, determinants, and consequences of corporate social responsibility (CSR). However, what firms include in their CSR or sustainability reports are much less covered and are predominantly covered in case studies of individual firms. In this paper, we instead take a holistic view and simultaneously explore what firms around the globe currently disclose in these reports, more specifically we investigate if firms are shareholder or stakeholder focused. In this investigation, we check the alignment of the reports to the materiality framework of Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) which was developed having shareholders as the intended user. To estimate what firms disclose in CSR reports we used the unsupervised Bayesian machine learning approach latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) developed by Blei et al. We conclude that firms target shareholders as the intended users of these reports, even in environments where stakeholder approach of management is argued to be more dominant. Methodologically, we contribute by demonstrating that topic modeling can enhance the objectivity in reviewing CSR-reports.

The purpose of this study is to investigate if audited financial statements add value for firms in the private debt market. Using an instrumental variable method, we find that firms with audited financial statements, on average, save 0.47 percentage points on the cost of debt compared to firms with unaudited financial statements. We also find that using the big, well-known auditing firms does not yield any additional cost of debt benefits. Lastly, we investigate if there are industries where alternative sources of information make auditing less valuable in reducing the cost of debt. Here, we find that auditing is less important in lowering cost in one industry, agriculture, where one lender has a 74% market share and a 100-year history of lending to firms within that industry. As such, it seems that lenders having high exposure to a certain industry might act as an alternative to auditing in reducing the information asymmetry between the firm and the lender.

The purpose of the review is to synthesize the research on materiality measures of sustainability reporting and highlight how preparers, users, auditors, regulators and other stakeholders assess or determine the materiality in sustainability reporting. The review further summarizes the findings on consequences and determinants of material disclosures in sustainability reporting. Several directions for future research are also discussed. This study provides a systematic review of materiality measures developed in the context of sustainability reporting. This synthesis of the literature summarizes the existing methodologies of measuring materiality. It also evaluates the strength and limitations of existing methods and approaches of measuring materiality in sustainability disclosures. We find that the ex post materiality measures are simplistic and unidirectional in nature and ex ante materiality measures lack external validity and are generally narrow in focus – for example, focused on single firms or industries. Another major limitation in the current literature is the absence of robust empirical investigation of double materiality in sustainability reporting and a vast majority of the measures are developed without stakeholder engagement. Lastly, we document that the findings on determinants of material disclosure are fragmented and inconclusive and that the literature on consequences of material disclosure is rather un-explored. The study explains the connections and differences between the various materiality measures. We document that materiality is measured in two distinct ways, ex ante and ex post and often times without stakeholder engagement. Moreover, given that a vast majority of the measures rely on manual content analysis, we find that they suffer from reproducibility and scalability.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate whether board composition affects corporate sustainability (CS) levels in private firms. Additionally, the study examines a potential interplay between CS levels and CS reporting, and the impact of EU Directive 2014 / 95/EU (Non-Financial Reporting Directive [NFRD]) on resources spent on CS. Design/methodology/approach: The authors surveyed the chief executive officers (CEOs), chief financial officers (CFOs) and Environment Officers of Swedish private firms subject to NFRD, receiving 149 valid responses (a response rate 24%). The authors coded the responses using van Marrewijk and Werre’s (2003) CS levels framework. The levels are Pre-CS, Compliance-driven, Profit-driven, Caring, Synergistic and Holistic. The study then explained the CS levels with board characteristics. Findings: While on average the sample firms have a profit-driven CS level, the authors find that CS level is positively driven by female Chairs, female CEOs and external CEOs. Early voluntary reporting before NFRD does not explain the CS level. On adoption of the NFRD, mandatory reporters increased resources spent on CS activities and CS reporting more than early voluntary-reporters. Nonetheless, slightly over half of the sample firms reported no significant impact of the NFRD on resources spent on CS. Practical implications: The findings may be useful for stakeholders interested in corporate governance and CS levels. Also, the findings support further regulation such as EU Directive 2022/2464 (Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive [CSRD]). Social implications: In private firms, female leaders are likely to play a significant role in driving altruistically motivated CS practices. Originality/value: The focus is on private firms in Sweden which, unlike those in other jurisdictions, were subject to NFRD. Methodologically, the use of a survey provides an alternative to the previous heavy reliance on archival research.

We develop a novel and generic text-based measure to classify and evaluate greenhouse gas (GHG) disclosures. We construct the measure using collocation analysis of GHG-related words and regular expressions. Automated implementation achieved high concordance compared to manual investigations. We move beyond the “bag-of-words” approach in classifying voluminous nonfinancial corporate disclosure. We also outline a methodology that is manyfold scalable and makes replicability straightforward. Compared to past studies, we work with a significantly larger sample of 5,017 reports across 80 countries, thereby dealing with greater complexity and leading to better generalizability. We also contribute to the debate on whether nonfinancial disclosures exhibit accountability or are merely greenwashing. We find a negative trend in accountability worldwide, and firm-level accountability in GHG disclosures is not detectable in a country-level reduction of GHG emissions. Moreover, firms disclose significantly higher accountable information in a civil-law legal environment compared to those in a common-law legal environment. JEL Classifications: M14; M40.

Many European countries have abolished mandatory audits for small firms to reduce the regulatory and administrative burden for these firms. However, we still lack knowledge on whether such legislative changes affect employment growth for those firms that become free to choose to have external audits. We investigate this question using a Swedish reform that made audits voluntary for small firms fulfilling certain requirements. The reform created an almost ideal natural experiment, which we use to evaluate the effects of voluntary audits on employment growth for small firms using a difference-in-difference estimator. We find that firms which fulfilled the requirements for voluntary auditing, compared to a control group of similar firms that did not, increased their employment growth rate by 0.59%. This corresponds to 2,770 jobs being created in the year following the reform, suggesting that mandatory audits act as a growth barrier for small firms.