Corporate social responsibility information disclosure objective or not: An empirical research of Chinese listed companies based on text mining

Abstract

Purpose

Based on the text mining tools, this paper aims to propose a new method to evaluate the subjectivity and objectivity of corporate social responsibility information disclosure.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors build up a text subjectivity evaluation model of corporate social responsibility reports through meta-analysis; a text mining is conducted to all sample CSR reports released by Chinese listed companies untill March 2016[1]. Furthermore, the authors made an overall and quantitative analysis of the situation which contained changing state, characteristics and abnormal value on the subjectivity and objectivity of information disclosure.

Findings

The results show that the subjectivity scores of social responsibility reports of Chinese listed companies are generally in a normal distribution. The diagram turns out to be a rising trend over the years and increases linearly from 2011 to 2013. Also, the industry heterogeneity and policy control are the main reasons for the formation of the differences, which are significant between different industries and different years.

Originality/value

This paper provides not only an important empirical basis for the research of corporate social responsibility but also a new idea for the non-financial information disclosure as well as objective evaluation of normative text.

Citation

Duan, Z., He, Y. and Zhong, Y. (2018), "Corporate social responsibility information disclosure objective or not: An empirical research of Chinese listed companies based on text mining", Nankai Business Review International, Vol. 9 No. 4, pp. 519-539. https://doi.org/10.1108/NBRI-01-2018-0003