An Evaluation of the Quality of Corporate Social Responsibility Reports by Some of the World's Largest Financial Institutions

This study evaluates the quality and comprehensiveness of 104 CSR reports from the world’s largest financial institutions in 2012. It reveals that legal factors and a country’s CSR environment significantly influence reporting quality, with common law countries showing higher quality. Firm size does not impact overall quality, but larger firms report better on philanthropy and bribery. Common law traditions, robust legal regimes, and high CSR standards correlate with better bribery and corruption reporting, while CSR-minded and low-quality legal environments yield higher quality philanthropy reporting.

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S. Prakash Sethi, Terrence F. Martell and Mert Demir

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Corporate social responsibility

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