英语论文网

>the completeness or comprehensiveness[5]of reporting(byunderstanding the reasons for non-disclosure[6]);and
.
inform critical analysis of the(potential)role of legislation inachieving
improvements in the above areas(see Adams and Harte(2000)for a discussion of this in relation to equal opportunities reporting).
The factors examined in the prior literature have been broken down into three categories:
(1)corporate characteristics(including size,industry group,financial/
economic performance and share trading volume,price and risk);
(2)general contextual factors(including country of origin,time,specific
events,media pressure,stakeholders and social,political,cultural and
economic context);and
(3)the internal context(including identity of company chair and existence
of a social reporting committee).
The implications of the empirical findings for the theoretical development ofthe field are discussed and a diagram summarising the variables examined inboth the prior literature and this study known to influence corporate reportingis presented.The intention is to highlight the existence of a number ofvariables which are not captured by the current,so-called`theories''of socialreporting.In particular,these theories about why and how companies reporthave been developed largely without reference to internal corporate variablesidentified in this study including both the process by which companies reportand the attitudes of the key players.Whilst many of these internal contextual
variables are themselves influenced by general contextual variables,the
strength of their influence justifies them having separate attention.A
comparative英国论文代写 study such as this renders the influence of general contextualvariables(which differ across countries)on internal contextual variables morevisible.There have now been several studies testing the main social reportingtheories,stakeholder theory,legitimacy theory and political economytheory[7].These studies have either provided support for or indicated rejectionof one or more of the theories,no one theory being consistently supported orrefuted,thus demonstrating that any one of these theories can only provide aInterorganisatiofact
2
partial explanation.Indeed,whether or not a theory has been supported
depends to a large extent on the scope of the study and the variables
investigated(see Adams and Harte,1998).Prior work also points to the
difficulty of explaining the lack of disclosure on some issues using thesetheories(see Adams et al.,1995a).In contrast to the academic literature,the practice of social reporting andauditing,which has developed rapidly in the last five years,is payingincreasingly more attention to the internal processes of reporting.Indeed
AA1000,an exposure draft published by the Institute of Social and EthicalAccountAbility(1999a,b),focuses entirely on the processes of reporting andauditing without specifying anyreportingindicators.Examples of recentreporting where the company's report and in many cases also their auditor'sreport have focused on internal processes of reporting are provided by,forexample,Camelot Group Plc[8],Co-operative Bank Plc[9],Novo Nordisk[10],Royal Dutch/Shell[11]and TXU Europe[12].
Prior literatureAs discussed above,the prior literature on the influences on social reportinghas been broken down into three categories:
(1)corporate characteristics;
(2)general contextual factors;and
(3)internal contextual