Corporate Social Responsibility Research in Accounting: A Framework and a Review
67 Pages Posted: 9 Mar 2018
Date Written: March 5, 2018
Abstract
Over the past two decades, there has been growing interest in corporate social responsibility (CSR) among accounting scholars. As a testament to this growing interest, two review papers on CSR were published last year in accounting journals. Cohen and Simnett (2015) review the academic literature relating to assurance services and CSR and discuss future research avenues. Huang and Watson (2015) summarize the accounting literature on the determinants of CSR, the link between CSR and financial performance, the link between CSR activities and information asymmetry and the link between CSR reporting and assurance services. Against this backdrop, the objectives of this paper are to (a) define CSR and provide a framework for CSR research that is helpful to accounting research, (b) summarize the research papers relating to CSR disclosures and (c) highlight avenues for future research on CSR reporting. Although our review does not delve into the link between CSR and assurance, it overlaps with Huang and Watson (2015) to the extent that some research papers are considered. However, we relate the papers to the definitions and framework we develop, and as such, complement their effort.
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