Proceedings of 9th Asian Business Research Conference
20-21 December, 2013, BIAM Foundation, Dhaka, Bangladesh ISBN: 978-1-922069-39-9
Corporate Social Responsibility Disclosure Practices by a Less
Developing African Country
Humayun Kabir
Organizations have been criticized for having their primary goal as profit
maximization and not paying attention to the social and environmental factors
in which they operate. With this respect, corporate social responsibility (CSR)
concept has become dominant in corporate reporting and subsequently
disclosure of CSR information has been steadily increasing in recent years,
especially in developed and developing economies. While there is substantial
academic research on CSR in the developed and developing countries, little
reference has been made to explore CSR practices in less developing
countries, particularly in Africa continent. As such, the aim of this paper is to
examine the type and extent of CSR information disclosure in corporate
reports of public enterprises in a less developing African country (i.e.
Swaziland) over the years 2008 and 2010. Corporate annual reports and other
relevant documents were used to extract CSR disclosure information. The
study used content analysis of CSR information appearing in the corporate
reports. Content analysis was measured in accordance with number of words.
The paper examines four major categories of CSR disclosure such as
environmental performance and policies, human resources, community
activities, and fair business practices. Findings show that though corporate
social disclosure by the selected enterprises is relatively scanty, there is a
trend of increasing amounts of such disclosure among the enterprises from
2008 to 2010. Results show that human resources disclosures were greatest
followed by community involvement and then by environmental related issues.
The study also reveals that enterprises disclosed their CSR information on a
voluntary basis as there is no specific legislation in Swaziland to enforce
companies to disclose such information and most enterprises disclosed their
social responsibility information under the headings of ‘CSR Statement’ or ‘CSI
(Corporate Social Investment) Statement’. This study contributes to the
understanding of the level of CSR disclosure practices by public enterprises in
a less developing African country.
Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility, Corporate Social Disclosure, Public Enterprise,
Swaziland.
JEL Codes: M14
Field of Research: Accounting
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Md. Humayun Kabir, Accounting Department, Faculty of Economics and Finance, Tshwane University of Technology,
Private Bag – X11312, Nelspruit – 1200, South Africa. E-mail: kabirmh@tut.ac.za