Zeszyty Teoretyczne Rachunkowości (Sep 2016)
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 environmental information (SEI) disclosure that were carried out in Lithuanian companies in 2000–2015 with the aim to identify determinants of the phenomenon and trends of its development. Having reviewed 14 papers included in the national database of scientific journals, Lituanistika, the authors identify both qualitative and quantitative studies which present the results of content analysis of SEI or corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports. Content-wise they tend to explore the relationship between SEI disclosure and 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 determinant of SEI disclosure in Lithuanian companies. Disclosed information by Lithuanian companies is less numerous and includes fewer stakeholders (i.e. employees, society and environment) compared to the reports of multinational companies or enterprises operating in advanced economies. As Lithuania is a post-Soviet society with a long tradition of presenting a better reality in reports, the contents of SEI could be analysed through the integrity perspective which would inevitably draw researchers’ attention not 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.
