Social reporting in the annual reports of Iranian listed companies

Abstract

This paper examines corporate social reporting (CSR) in the annual reports of companies listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE) in Iran. Descriptive analysis and multiple linear regression techniques are used to analyse the extent of CSR disclosure and to test hypotheses regarding the relationships between CSR disclosure and four company characteristics namely size, profitability, financial leverage and industry type. Among five important themes of social disclosure (human resources, environmental performance and policies, community activities, energy consumption, and customer satisfaction and product quality) the human resources theme was found to be the most common type of disclosure made. Only the size of the disclosing company was found to be significantly related to the level of overall CSR disclosure.