Firm Performance, Corporate Ownership, and Corporate Social Responsibility Disclosure in China

Abstract

The existing literature provides conflicting results on the association between firm performance and corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure. This paper empirically examines the effect of firm performance on CSR disclosure in terms of disclosure frequency and quality among Chinese listed firms and the possible mediating effect of corporate ownership on the relationship between firm performance and CSR disclosure. Our findings show that better‐performing firms are more likely than worse‐performing ones to disclose CSR information and to produce higher quality CSR reports. In addition, the link between firm performance and CSR disclosure is found to be weaker among state‐owned enterprises compared with non‐state‐owned ones.