A Field Experimental Study of the Impact of Social Responsibility Disclosure on Institutional Investment Decision-Making

This study used a repeated measures experimental design to evaluate the effect of social responsibility disclosure in annual reports on the investment decision-making behavior of institutional investors. Information cues were prepared using actual company data and subjects were required to go through an investment exercise. To the extent that social responsibility information was of a general type and presented in narrative form, the results indicated that such disclosure did not have an effect on institutional investors' decisions. However, this study also found that certain themes and presentation of social disclosure were perceived more important for investment decision-making which could have policy implications for preparers of annual reports.