Trends and determinants of social and environmental information disclosure in Lithuanian companies: Literature review

Abstract

The paper presents the findings of a literature review of the empirical studies on the social and environmentalinformation (SEI) disclosure that were carried out in Lithuanian companies in 2000–2015 with theaim to identify determinants of the phenomenon and trends of its development. Having reviewed 14papers included in the national database of scientific journals, Lituanistika, the authors identify bothqualitative and quantitative studies which present the results of content analysis of SEI or corporate socialresponsibility (CSR) reports. Content-wise they tend to explore the relationship between SEI disclosureand company profile such as industry sector, company size, financial leverage, profitability, and pollution.The findings are of a mixed character except for the industry sector, which is an unambiguous determinantof SEI disclosure in Lithuanian companies. Disclosed information by Lithuanian companies isless numerous and includes fewer stakeholders (i.e. employees, society and environment) compared tothe reports of multinational companies or enterprises operating in advanced economies. As Lithuania isa post-Soviet society with a long tradition of presenting a better reality in reports, the contents of SEIcould be analysed through the integrity perspective which would inevitably draw researchers’ attentionnot only to the text in annual or CSR reports, company websites or press releases, but also to the practices as perceived by the companies’ stakeholders.

Keywords

• information disclosure
• corporate social responsibility
• reporting
• Lithuania
• social and environmental information
• społeczna odpowiedzialność przedsiębiorstwa