Is there any heterogeneous impact of mandatory disclosure on corporate social responsibility dimensions? Evidence from a quasi-natural experiment in China

Abstract

The corporate social responsibility (CSR) report is an important carrier of non-financial information disclosure of enterprises and an important bridge of communication between enterprises and interested parties. Compulsory disclosure has promoted the improvement of CSR levels to some extent. While, for interested parties, their attention to various dimensions of CSR has significant differences, which leads to the heterogeneous impact of mandatory disclosure policy on its different dimensions. Through regression discontinuity design model (RDD), as well as using quasi-natural experiments of Chinese mandatory disclosure policies issued in 2008, we are going to get the following conclusions by analyzing the heterogeneous impact of mandatory disclosure on CSR with the environment (CER), social (SOC) and economic (ECO) three-dimension on the basis of verifying that mandatory disclosure policy has a positive impact on CSR. (1) The effects of mandatory disclosure on the three dimensions of CSR are heterogeneous, that is, the significant effects and directions are significantly different in the three dimensions. (2) The heterogeneity of mandatory disclosure on CSR is reflected in the changing trend, and there is no significant difference at the turning point of the trend. (3) The heterogeneity of the impact mechanism of mandatory disclosure on CSR is reflected in the different mediating variables of policy on different dimensions impact, that is, the mediating variables of CER and ECO are the environmental disclosure information and return on assets. (4) The impact of mandatory disclosure on different dimensions of CSR is heterogeneous when the nature of industries and property rights are different.

Keywords

• mandatory disclosure
• csr
• cer
• heterogeneous impact
• rdd