The Impact of Social Responsibility Disclosure on Corporate Financial Health: Evidences from Some Italian Public Companies

Abstract

Companies are today often seen as one actor in a complex system linking all the actors with several, different ties, and binding them by a social contract asking each of them to meet the expectations of the other social actors in the same context, in order to get the legitimacy they need. Corporations can adopt social disclosure to increase their legitimacy towards all stakeholders, influencing their behavior and leading to the creation of a positive Corporate Association (Brown and Dacin, 1997). In this paper we investigate the relationship between Social Responsibility Disclosure practices and Corporate Performance. We develop a framework to study this topic through several perspectives: External evaluation (Ethical Ratings), utilization of specific behaviors (Ethical Labels), Principle (Code of Ethics) and Behaviors (Social Reports) disclosure. In order to get a first understanding of these relationships we have selected a sample of Italian Companies listed on the italian stock exchange.