Determinants of social and environmental disclosures by Spanish Companies

The purpose of this paper is to examine the corporate social disclosures practices of Spanish firms. Annual reports of 41 Spanish firms for the year 2007 were analysed to determine the level of corporate social disclosures (CSD), industry differences in CSD and the effect of financial performance on the quality of disclosures. Results show that Spanish firms disclose most information on governance followed by products and services. Differences in disclosures made by various industry groups were observed suggesting that each industry group has certain preferences in disclosing information to their stakeholders. No significant relationship between financial performance and corporate social disclosures for Spanish companies was observed. This research suggests that CSR disclosures by Spanish firms are influenced by government regulations. The customers are other group of influential stakeholders. This research is limited by the fact that corporate social disclosures practices of Spanish firms were studied for a single year.