強制揭露企業社會責任報告書與可讀性之關聯

Abstract

既有文獻多探討財務資訊與可讀性之關聯，較少去了解較多文字紀錄的非財務資訊，故本研究欲探討強制揭露企業社會責任報告書與報告書可讀性之關聯。首先，本研究測試在我國強制規範的情況下，企業社會責任報告書之可讀性是否受公司財務績效所影響。本研究亦進而測試企業社會責任報告書之遵循準則與確信準則與可讀性之關聯。本研究透過可讀性分數與稅前息前盈餘之間的關係，發現公司財務績效越好，其企業社會責任報告書之可讀性越高，驗證了Subramanian在1993年提出的模糊性假說（Obfuscation Hypothesis）。另外，不同的遵循準則亦影響企業社會責任報告書的可讀性，當公司揭露相關的資訊越完整，企業社會責任報告書之可讀性越高，不同的確信準則亦影響企業社會責任報告書之可讀性。

While most prior literature focuses on the relationship between financial information and readability, little research examines the readability of nonfinancial information which contains more textual contents. Therefore, this research investigates the relationship of mandatory corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure and its readability. First, we test whether the financial performance affects the readability of CSR report under the mandatory environment. Second, we also examine whether the readability of CSR reports is correlated with in-accordance framework and standards of assurance. We find that when a company’s performance is better, its readability of CSR report is better. This is consistent with Obfuscation Hypothesis (Subramanian 1993). We also find that the readability of CSR reports various with different in-accordance standards and different assurance standards. Readability of CSR reports is higher when the In Accordance-Comprehensive Standard or the AA1000 Assurance Standard is used. This thesis was wrote in Chinese.