Readability of Corporate Social Responsibility Communication in Malaysia

Abstract:     
This study examines the readability of CSR communication (disclosure) for a sample of listed firms in Malaysia. The study employs Readability Formulae and finds that the extent of syntactic complexity making it difficult to comprehend the CSR communication of the listed firms varies from very difficult to fairly difficult. There is a relationship between the readability of the CSR communication and firm performance. Our findings imply that management of poorly performing firms deliberately choose difficult language in CSR communication which supports the obfuscation hypothesis. Our study contributes significantly to research in CSR literature by enumerating the syntactical difficulties in the corporate annual CSR communications.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 11

Keywords: CSR, Social responsibility communication, stakeholder engagement, Malaysia

working papers series