CSR: a review of

Corporate social and the literature

environmental reporting
A review of the literature and a
longitudinal study of UK disclosure 47

Rob Gray, Reza Kouhy and Simon Lavers

Department of Accounting and Business Finance, University of Dundee,
Dundee, Scotland

Articulating corporate social reporting

Although corporate social reporting (CSR)[1] has been the subject of sub-
stantial academic accounting research for over two decades, the literature does
not possess an overall coherence (see, for example, Ullmann, 1985). There are
many reasons for this – at least some of which arise as a result of CSR not
sharing many of the core “certainties” of traditional accounting. So, for
example, CSR is not enshrined in legislation equivalent to Companies Acts; as a
result it is neither practised systematically by organizations nor able to claim
either universal recognition or universal definition. Indeed, there is little about
CSR which is not contestable – and contested. CSR, at its broadest may
embrace: both self-reporting by organizations and reporting about
organizations by third parties; information in the annual report and any other
form of communication; both public domain and private information;
information in any medium (financial, non-financial, quantitative non-
quantitative). It is not restricted necessarily by reference to selected information
recipients; and the information deemed to be CSR may, ultimately, embrace any
subject.
As if this were not enough, interest in CSR has waxed and waned as
researchers have entered and left the field (Parker, 1986); there has been a lack
of any agreed theoretical perspective to drive systematic research (Preston,
1983; Ullmann, 1985); the absence of systematic reporting by organizations has
made traditional “positive” research more difficult[2] and CSR continually has

Comments received from colleagues at the Universities of Dundee, East Anglia, Sheffield,
Southampton, Canterbury and Otago, at the BAA 1990 National Conference, the EAA 1990
Congress and the BAA 1992 Research Summer School are gratefully acknowledged. The authors
are grateful for the help and suggestions from Carol Adams, Jan Bebbington, David Collison, Sid
Gray, Roland Kaye, Richard Laughlin, Markus Milne, Ailsa Nicholson, David Owen, David Power
and Clare Roberts. Especial thanks goes to Sue Gray who undertook much of the replication
analysis reported in the article and to Lee Parker and James Guthrie whose thoughtful comments
on the structure of the article were particularly helpful. Accounting, Auditing &
Accountability Journal, Vol. 8
The financial assistance and advice of the Research Board of the Institute of Charted No. 2, 1995, pp. 47-77. © MCB
Accountants in England and Wales on this project are very gratefully acknowledged. University Press, 0951-3574
AAAJ attracted doubts about its legitimacy as an area of accounting research enquiry
8,2 (Gray et al., 1987, 1988, 1991; Parker, 1986, 1991). Finally, this very uncertainty
and the breadth of possibilities which may constitute CSR have been
instrumental in making the subject more explicitly political than either is
traditionally the case in accounting research (but see Cooper and Sherer, 1984;
Tinker et al., 1982) or accounting researchers are historically equipped to
48 handle (see, for example, Puxty, 1986, 1991; Tinker et al., 1991).
Seen in this light, two significantly different approaches to researching CSR
have emerged in the literature. First, CSR may be treated as an addendum to
conventional accounting activity and researched with the same assumptions
and preconceptions which inform much of mainstream accounting research.
Such an approach will usually take the financial community as the principal
“users” of any CSR and will tend to limit the perception of “social” accounting
CSR to that which can be articulated within the confines of conventional
accounting. This approach, with its severe limitations of scope and efficacy, are
discussed in (for example) Gray et al. (1987) and Mathews (1984, 1993). The
second alternative approach to CSR places social and environmental reporting
at the heart of an examination of the role of information in organization-society
dialogue (see for example, Preston, 1975, 1981, 1983). While this latter approach
would appear to be generally considered within the conventional accounting
literature as being too ambitious, this wider view has been both the source of
the major advances in our understanding of CSR and a source of major criticism
of the CSR literature. That is, CSR’s failure to theorize explicitly the
organization-society relationship leaves it both flaccid and immanent (Puxty,
1986, 1991; Tinker et al., 1991; and see also Benston, 1982a, 1982b; Gray et al.,
1988, 1991). These charges are difficult to rebut (Parker, 1991).
It is not the purpose of this article to attempt to solve these major problems.
Our dominant intention is to provide – and interpret – data about some of the
UK’s CSR, but we intend to try to achieve this within an explicit recognition of
some of the major problems of CSR. To do this, we follow the arguments of Gray,
et al. (1987, 1988) that there is a core or mainstream of CSR research which can
be (and is being) theorized and does not require the exclusion of any other
possible forms of CSR (see also Mathews, 1984, 1993). This core, which
generally coalesces around an (under-specified) form of accountability and
stakeholder theory (see below), concerns itself, primarily, with self-reporting by
organizations (but see Geddes, 1992; Gray et al., 1991; Harte and Owen, 1987).
This self-reporting is of information which enters the public domain (but see,
for example, Blake et al., 1976; Foley and Maunders, 1977)[3], tends to be
reported via the annual report in one form or another (but see Abbott and
Monsen, 1979; Gray, V., 1978; Gray, R.H., 1983; Gray et al., 1987; Zeghal and
Ahmed, 1990)[4] and predominantly is concerned with organization-society
interactions relating to the natural environment, employees, communities and
customers[5]. The CSR literature also tends to recognize that such self-reporting
may be undertaken voluntarily, as a result of legislation or as part of a code of
practice[6].
 Although this core CSR literature has been concerned with a wide range of CSR: a review of
purposes[7], this article is concerned predominantly with an attempt to describe the literature
CSR practice in a particular national context (see, for example, Gray et al., 1987;
Guthrie and Mathews, 1985; Guthrie and Parker, 1990; Owen, 1992; Roberts,
C.B., 1990, 1991). However, no description is value- or theory-free (Tinker et al.,
1982). The description undertaken in this article attempts explicitly to reflect
the “mainstream” of the CSR literature (for semiotic reasons, see Gray et al., 49
1995) but is theorized (and analysed subsequently) in a (broadly) neo-pluralist
framework within which the “newer” (to accounting and CSR) theories of
stakeholder theory, legitimacy theory and political economy theory are
articulated.
With the above delineation of CSR we can enter the body of the article which
is structured as follows. The following section provides an overview of the
empirical literature on social disclosure and then attempts to theorize
mainstream CSR. Then a very brief introduction is provided to the data
collection (this is explained in detail in the accompanying article – Gray et al.,
1995) and then provides an overview of social and environmental disclosure by
UK companies over a 13-year period. The penultimate section then provides
some interpretation of these patterns in the context of stakeholder, legitimacy
and political economy theories. The last section provides some conclusions and
some suggestions on ways forward for CSR research.

Empirical findings and theorizing in the CSR literature

The 20 years or more of empirical investigation of CSR practice have produced
a very wide literature which engages many different theoretical perspectives
(explicitly or implicitly (see, for example, Arnold, 1990; Tinker et al., 1991));
employs many different research methods; is motivated by a wide range of
research questions; and covers many different countries and time-periods[8].
Despite both the diversity of concerns and approaches in the literature, and
the diversity of countries, time-periods and samples selected for investigation, it
does seem possible to draw carefully some tentative conclusions about CSR
practice. First, CSR would not appear to be a systematic activity. To the extent
that it is not covered by regulations, social disclosure seems to wax and wane in
popularity, in the subjects to which it gives attention and in terms of the
organizations which provide such disclosure. Second, CSR does not appear to
be related to profitability in the same period (Abbott and Monsen, 1979;
Belkaoui and Karpik, 1989; Cowen et al., 1987; Freedman and Jaggi, 1988;
Freedman and Ullmann, 1986; Ingram, 1978; Singh and Ahuja, 1983), although
there is some evidence to suggest that it might be related to lagged profits
(Roberts, R.W., 1992). Third, CSR does appear to be related to company size.
However, this is not the most reliable of results, when no allowance is taken of
other factors (see, for example, Andrews et al., 1989; Belkaoui and Karpik, 1989;
Cowen et al., 1987; Singh and Ahuja, 1983; Tonkin and Skerratt, 1991; Trotman
and Bradley, 1981). Fourth, there is some evidence of industry effects but the
studies are not clear or consistent enough to assess exactly what, if any, these
AAAJ effects might be (see, for example, Aupperle, 1984; Beresford and Cowen, 1979;
8,2 Cowen et al., 1987; Freedman and Jaggi, 1988; Roberts, 1990; Singh and Ahuja,
1983; Zeghal and Ahmed, 1990). Fifth, the country in which the organization is
reporting and the country of ultimate ownership seem to have a significant
effect, (see, for example, Andrews et al., 1989; Guthrie and Parker, 1990; Roberts,
C.B., 1990; Teoh and Thong, 1984). If this result proved reliable, it would go
50 some way to explaining inconsistent results between studies in different
countries at least (but see Ullmann, 1985). It certainly seems to be the case that
the subject of disclosure is both time and country-variant (see, for example,
Gray et al., 1987; Guthrie and Parker, 1989, 1990). Finally, there would appear to
be a number of characteristics which may be related to predisposition to make
social disclosures. These include capital intensity (Belkaoui and Karpik, 1989);
age of the corporation (Roberts, R.W., 1992); and such matters as strategic
posture, senior executive attitudes and the existence of a social responsibility
committee (Cowen et al., 1987; Roberts, R.W., 1992; Trotman and Bradley, 1981).
These are tentative conclusions and these arise in part from the lack of
explanation as to why these relationships might hold. Indeed, Ullmann (1985)
cites the absence of systematic theorizing of CSR as one of the principal reasons
for the lack of substantive, systematic conclusions about CSR (see also
Mathews, 1987, 1993 and Mintzberg, 1983).
This challenge has been taken up in several ways by authors who have
attempted to place empirical investigation of CSR in some sort of theoretical
context. These attempts may be related to three broad groups of theories
concerning organization-society information flows:
(1) decision-usefulness studies, (which then overlap with);
(2) economic theory studies;
(3) social and political theory studies.

Decision-usefulness studies
CSR has featured as an element in a number of enquiries into the “decision
usefulness” of accounting information. These enquiries are of two types: the
“ranking” studies (which have been so popular from time to time); and the
investigation of information effects on share price behaviour. In the ranking
studies, analysts, bankers and others are asked to rank various accounting data
in order of perceived importance. These data might comprise either those which
are received currently or a “users’ wish list”. Studies from, inter alia, Belkaoui
(1984); Benjamin and Stanga (1977); Chenall and Juchau (1977) and Firth (1978,
1979, 1984) have all suggested that the financial community find CSR better
than useless and, indeed, have ranked it in categories “moderately important”
and certainly more important than some issues to which the accounting
profession has given considerable attention in the past (but see also McNally et
al., 1982, for a contrary view). Other studies have attempted to investigate
whether social disclosure is treated as information by stock market partici-
pants (see, for example, Aupperle, 1984; Belkaoui, 1980; Bowman, 1973; Buzby
and Falk, 1978, 1979; Holman et al., 1985; Ingram, 1978; Shane and Spicer, 1983; CSR: a review of
Spicer, 1978). The results of these studies tend to be inconsistent and/or the literature
inconclusive, although Mintzberg (1983) in his review of this evidence suggests
that it is possible to conclude tentatively that “it pays to be good, but not too
good”.
However, the decision-usefulness approach to investigating CSR has, despite
the attempts of Dierkes and Antal (1985), been a largely unsatisfactory one. In 51
part this results from the theoretical problems with “decision-usefulness” itself
(see, for example, Laughlin and Puxty, 1981; Pallot, 1991; Williams, 1987). But
the main problem has been that interest in CSR[9] is not motivated
predominantly by a concern with the needs, wants and whims of financial
participants (see, for example, Booth et al., 1987; Mathews, 1987; Owen et al.,
1987). Although there appear to be instances when social and environmental
information does influence financial behaviour (see, for example, Epstein, 1991,
1992; and the ethical investment literature – see, for example, Harte et al., 1991;
Perks et al., 1992), the whole process of information and response is under-
theorized and begs too many important questions (see, for example, Cooper,
1988; Owen, 1992).
It would be wrong to dismiss this literature as unimportant and inconclusive.
However mis-specified and under-theorized it may be, the decision-usefulness
literature has had the potentially important effect of raising the visibility of
non-financial, non-economic factors in organizational reporting and
accountability. It has thereby given a potential to other voices and other
discourses which typically are not privileged in accounting research (see, for
example, Arrington, 1990; Cooper and Sherer, 1984).

Economic theory studies

One response to this “unsatisfactory” CSR literature has been a peripheral
emergence of “economic agency theory” and “positive accounting theory”
studies of CSR (see, for example, Belkaoui and Karpik, 1989; Mak, 1991; Ness
and Mirza, 1991; Shane and Spicer, 1983)[10]. In addition to there having been
relatively little development of this “economic” perspective on CSR, the “agency
theory” and “positive accounting theory” perspectives are highly contestable
(see, for example, Arrington and Francis, 1989; Christenson, 1983; Puxty, 1986;
Tinker and Okcabel, 1991). While the accounting community clearly has
benefited from the methodological pluralism of recent decades, “economic
theory” in the pristine sense in which it normally is applied in accounting
research has little or nothing to offer as a basis for the development of CSR.
Apart from the intellectual doubts that one must have concerning the approach,
its principal tenets of, first, (allegedly) avoiding any concern with what “should
be” and, second, deferring all wisdom to (allegedly free) “markets” runs entirely
counter to principal concerns of CSR which is motivated primarily by the
market failures (especially injustices, anti-democratic tendencies, information
assymetrics and “externalities”) and desire to change current practice. In
addition, its central assumption that all actions are motivated by a morally
AAAJ degenerate form of short-term self-interest (see, for example, Gray et. al., 1994)
8,2 seems not only empirically implausible but also highly offensive. These issues
have been rehearsed widely in the literature reviewed above and need no
additional repetition. No further attention is given to these approaches here[11].

Social and political theory studies

52 To our mind, by far the more interesting and insightful theoretical perspectives
are those drawn from social and political theory – most particularly:
stakeholder theory; the legitimacy theory perspectives; and the perspectives
that emerge from political economy[12]. It is these approaches which have been
informing much of the more penetrating analyses of CSR in recent years (see,
for example, Arnold, 1990; Gray et al., 1987, 1988, 1991; Guthrie and Parker,
1989, 1990; Patten, 1992; Roberts, R.W., 1992; Ullmann, 1985).
However, the literature has not always developed the distinctions between
these theoretical positions as far as it might. It seems appropriate, therefore, to
attempt to clarify what is meant by “stakeholder”, “legitimacy” and “political
economy” theories when applied to social disclosure.
It seems to us that the essential problem in the literature arises from treating
each as competing theories of reporting behaviour (see, for example, Arnold,
1990; Guthrie and Parker, 1990), when “stakeholder theory” and “legitimacy
theory” are better seen as two (overlapping) perspectives on the issue which are
set within a framework of assumptions about “political economy”. Therefore
the differences which (for example) Guthrie and Parker (1990) and Arnold
(1990) discuss so usefully are differences in levels of resolution of perception
rather than arguments for and against competing theories as such.
Political economy, in its broadest sense, has a very long historical tradition
and is defined variously. The definition from Jackson (1982) seems helpful:
Political economy is the study of the interplay of power, the goals of power wielders and the
productive exchange system (Zald, 1970, p. 233). As a framework, political economy does not
concentrate exclusively on market exchanges. Rather it first of all analyses exchanges in
whatever institutional framework they occur and, second, analyses the relationships between
social institutions such as government, law and property rights, each fortified by power and
the economy, i.e. the system of producing and exchanging goods and services (p. 74).

The essential point, it seems, is that the economic domain cannot be studied in
isolation from the political, social and institutional framework within which the
economic takes place. As such, it seems unquestionably (but see Benston,
1982a) an apposite way of thinking about social disclosure by corporations.
CSR is generally predicated on a recognition that the economic (as represented
by the financial) is only one element of organizational life and this needs to be
(at a minimum) supplemented by or (preferably) interwoven with recognition of
the social and political.
To this extent there is little in the way of a problem. However, following Marx,
it becomes necessary to distinguish between “bourgeois” (or “vulgar”) political
economy (which is most usefully associated with J.S. Mill and those who
followed him) and “classical” political economy (see, for example, Abercrombie
et al., 1984; Held, 1980; Macpherson, 1973, 1977; and, obviously, the writings of CSR: a review of
Marx – see, for example, Bottomore and Rubel, 1961). Indeed, some of the the literature
confusion in the accounting literature may well stem from this distinction
because, as Abercrombie et al. (1984) remark, “political economy” has become
code for Marxism, whereas, in its accounting applications, it is often used in its
bourgeois formulation (Arnold, 1990).
The distinction is crucial because Marxian political economy places sectional 53
(class) interests, structural inequity, conflict and the role of the State at the heart
of its analysis. Bourgeois political economy largely ignores these elements and,
as a result, is content to perceive the world as essentially pluralistic. This, it
seems to us, is the essence of the conflict between the Tinker et al. (1991) Marxian
critique of the bourgeois pluralism of Gray et al. (1987, 1988) and the Arnold
(1990) Marxian critique of the Guthrie and Parker (1990) (predominantly)
bourgeois interpretation of political economy. These two points of view are
essentially different ways of looking at the issues (Held, 1980) and are,
fundamentally, irreconcilable in that the bourgeois perception treats as
important issues which the Marxian analysis will see as relatively trivial. The
bourgeois perception is exercised by relationships between the interest groups of
pluralism without explicit recognition of the way in which the forces of the
system (capitalism) construct the self-interests as group interests (Tinker, 1984).
As Tinker notes (1984, p. 70), “structural conflict may be mediated, modified and
transformed” within the system but the bourgeois perception, in its higher level
of resolution, treats these mediations as the whole of the story while ignoring
the processes that created this mediation and whether, indeed, the mediation
and transformation are actually significant in developing the relationships
between the structural (class) interests.
It is in this context that stakeholder and legitimacy theory can, perhaps, be
seen more clearly as they are both concerned with this “mediation, modification
and transformation” but from different points of view.
Stakeholder theory is (typically) explicitly bourgeois in that the world is seen
from the perspective of the management of the organization who are concerned
strategically with the continued success of the company. This is perhaps best
expressed in Ullmann (1985) and Roberts, R.W. (1992). From this perspective, the
corporation’s continued existence requires the support of the stakeholders and
their approval must be sought and the activities of the corporation adjusted to
gain that approval. The more powerful the stakeholders, the more the company
must adapt. Social disclosure is thus seen as part of the dialogue between the
company and its stakeholders and, as Roberts, R.W. (1992) observes, CSR has
been a relatively successful medium for negotiating these relationships. Indeed,
from the perspective of the organization, there is much to recommend this
approach to theorizing the organization-society relationship. While it may be a
simpler choice to assume that all such “stakeholder” approaches are driven by a
manipulative cynicism on the part of the corporation, this need not be so[13].
However, from the Marxian perspective such analysis still fails to address the
AAAJ central systemic issues that initially construct the relationships or, indeed, to
8,2 recognize the structural inequities in the “relationships”[14].
Much of legitimacy theory can be seen in the same light. The clearest
exposition is probably that of Lindblom (1994) who argues that we must first
distinguish between legitimacy – which is a status or condition – and
legitimation – which is the process underlying that state. She defines legitimacy
54 as:
…a condition or status which exists when an entity’s value system is congruent with the value
system of the larger social system of which the entity is a part. When a disparity, actual or
potential, exists between the two value systems, there is a threat to the entity’s legitimacy (p. 2).
Lindblom then proceeds, in a carefully argued analysis, to identify four
strategies which a corporation seeking legitimation may adopt. First, the
organization may seek to educate and inform its “relevant publics” about
(actual) changes in the organization’s performance and activities. (This strategy
is chosen in response to a recognition that the “legitimacy gap” arose from an
actual failure of performance of the organization.) Second, the organization may
seek to change the perceptions of the relevant publics – but not change its
actual behaviour. (This strategy is chosen as a response when the organization
sees that the legitimacy gap has arisen through misperceptions on the part of
the relevant publics.) Third, the organization may seek to manipulate
perception by deflecting attention from the issue of concern to other related
issues through an appeal to, for example, emotive symbols. (This strategy is
chosen on the grounds of manipulation. One illustration is when a company
with a legitimacy gap regarding its pollution performance chooses to ignore the
pollution and talk instead of its involvement with environmental charities, etc.)
Fourth, the company may seek to change external expectations of its
performance. (This strategy is chosen when the organization considers that the
relevant publics have unrealistic or “incorrect” expectations of its
responsibilities.) As Lindblom demonstrates, social disclosure can be employed
in each of these strategies.
Legitimacy theory, in many of its applications in the CSR literature, does
reflect a bourgeois political economy (see, for example, Preston and Post, 1975).
That is, it concerns itself with organization-society negotiation in a pluralistic
world. However, its application by (for example) Patten (1992), to a greater
extent by Guthrie and Parker (1989), and, most especially, by Hogner (1982) is
concerned with systemic responses as well as intra-system mediations and,
thus, takes us beyond a simple bourgeois political economy. That is, within a
classical political economy perspective we might find interest in attempts to
maintain legitimation of the system as a whole, attempts to intervene in the
State’s role in mediation (Arnold, 1990) and, especially, in attempts to redefine
and/or “renegotiate” elements of the hegemony (or at least the language and
symbols thereof). Indeed, Lindblom’s (1994) careful use of the term “relevant
publics” rather than any more widely-employed term (such as users or
stakeholders) suggests a recognition of the classical political economy
possibilities of her analysis.
 The apparently clear distinction between classical and bourgeois political CSR: a review of
economy – with its implications for legitimacy and stakeholder theory – while the literature
a useful dialectic is not necessarily helpful in reading a story from data. We are
much persuaded by Held’s (1987) construction of neo-pluralism as a partial
meeting place for Marxism and liberalism (see also Macpherson, 1977). The
neo-pluralist conception recognizes that power will be distributed unevenly,
that there will be conflict of interests (possibly structural) and that the focus of 55
observation (e.g. observable corporation-society interactions like CSR) may,
indeed, take place within a captured or controlled system – even if the capture
or control is perhaps not identifiable with any sectional or class interest or,
indeed, any interests at all (see, for example, Marcuse, 1955, 1964). The
conception is thus a dynamic one but – and it is an important but – it is a
conception which does not prescribe where the power lies, nor does it prescribe
that there are any predetermined battle-lines along (for example) class
boundaries. It thus permits the possibility that power and structure in society
are, ultimately, not empirical issues but matters of faith and belief – albeit faith
and belief which are informed by argument and other forms of evidence.
Thus, it seems to us, it is possible to make compatible interpretations of
evidence from these different theoretical perspectives. That is, if our interpreta-
tions from stakeholder and legitimacy theory are made in a neo-pluralist vein,
with explicit recognition of the (potentially) relatively narrow explanation that
these can offer, and these interpretations are augmented by wider perceptions
from classical political economy, one should end up with a set of observations
which are persuasive at different levels of resolution. We can illustrate this by
bringing the discussion back to empirical domain.
It should be apparent that we, in common with much of the CSR literature,
have little difficulty in defining CSR in the same way as Neimark (1992, p. 100)
defines accounting. That is, we see CSR as:
…forming part of the symbolic universe of language, signs, meanings, norms, beliefs,
perceptions and values, through which individuals and institutions define themselves and are
defined by others … Companies use their accounting [CSR?] to construct themselves and their
relationships with others as they strive to create and maintain the conditions for their
continued profitability and growth.
Further, we can concur with Lehman’s (1992, p. 19) reconstruction of Hurst’s
(1970) argument that:
accounting [CSR?] serve[s] to rationalise and justify the corporate entity … by not merely
describing effective management, but legitimizing corporate power and maintaining
confidence.
These are precisely the concerns of the bulk of the literature reviewed above.
Furthermore, we find Arnold’s (1990) argument that regulated social disclosure
might be interpreted as evidence of “counter-hegemony” and as potentially
serving “the interests of subordinate classes and social movements” (p. 180) as
especially helpful. Finally, the “periodization” analysis offered by Lehman
(1992) and Tinker et al. (1991) offers much for the interpretation of CSR practice.
The period covered by this article (1979-1991) includes the end of the decade of
AAAJ the 1970s when the UK labour movement had seemed at its strongest, followed
8,2 by the Thatcher decade in which (inter alia) there seemed to be an attempt to
instigate a renegotiation of company-labour relations (“the capital-owning
democracy”) and a redefinition of the roles of the corporation and the “market”
in community functions undertaken traditionally by the State. Finally, the
period concludes with late 1980s and early 1990s when environmental issues
56 offered the promise of a new hegemony. These, and other, interpretations are
possible within a classical political economy perspective on CSR practice.
However, as Puxty (1986, 1991) has argued, CSR may be little more than the
crumbs of legitimation dropped from the table of powerful corporations.
Indeed, much CSR may have little to offer – except by default – in developing
our understanding of political economy. In such a context, we do not find the
possibilities offered by legitimacy theory and stakeholder theory to be entirely
trivial. The development of employee and employment reporting in the UK in
the 1970s had important consequences (see, for example, Maunders, 1981, 1982,
1984), the worldwide response by the oil and chemical industry(ies) to disasters
such as Exxon Valdez and Bhopal was something more than trivial (see, for
example, Patten, 1992) and the extensive environmental debate of the 1990s –
especially throughout Europe – represented, at a minimum, a new discourse
and a new balance to accepted organizational reality (see, for example, Smith,
1993). However, whether we could interpret such events as mediating the
systemic structures of the organization-society relationship (political economy),
as readjustments by elements of the capitalist machinery (legitimacy theory) or
as attempts by corporations to control their environment (stakeholder theory) is
a moot question[15].
We return to these possibilities after examining the data derived from the 13
years of UK corporate social disclosure.

UK social and environmental disclosure

The data reported here were collected using content analysis of UK company
annual reports over a period of 13 years stretching from the beginning of the
Thatcher regime in Britain (1979). The details of the data collection and further
information about the data availability are given in the accompanying article
(Gray et al., 1995). The format of the data is summarized in the Appendix. The
data reported here is a summary of the data collected and provides an overview
of UK company reporting practices over the period[16].
Throughout the period, all companies had some CSR which consisted of, at
least, some employee-related disclosure comprising, at a minimum, data
relating to employment figures and/or pensions. Figures 1, 2 and 3 provide
some information on the percentage of the companies throughout the period
which disclosed in different areas of CSR.
Figure 1 shows the general rise in the proportions of companies disclosing.
By the end of the period all of the UK’s largest companies disclosed some
mandated information (in addition to the employment data and pensions data)
and some voluntary information. (The effect of a change in the sample is
 100 CSR: a review of
90 the literature
80
Percentage of sample

70
60
50
57
40
30
20
10
0
1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991
Years
Key : Figure 1.
Voluntary Mandatory (ex) Environmental Social disclosure by
Customer Community UK companies

striking in Figure 1 – shown by the vertical line in this and all following graphs
– and suggests strongly the presence of size-effect in CSR practice. See [16] and
Gray et al., 1995; for more detail.) Employee-related disclosure was clearly the
most popular subject on which to report but disclosure relating to the
community (typically charitable donations) was also widely practised. In
addition, environmental disclosure rose significantly throughout the period and
was no longer a marginal activity after the mid-1980s.
Figure 2 shows the pattern of compliance with areas of mandated CSR. The
general pattern of compliance (some companies anticipating the regulation,
some delaying compliance) is similar to that reported in other studies of
compliance with accounting regulations (see, for example, Perks and Butler,
1977; Weetman, 1977). Only on pensions data (and employment data, which are
not shown in Figure 2) does disclosure reach 100 per cent. No size effect is
apparent for disclosure of consultation with employees. A potentially perverse
size effect is suggested for disclosure relating to charitable donations, ESOPs
(employee share ownership schemes) and information relating to the
employment of the disabled. A small but steady proportion of companies
provide disclosure of involvement in South Africa.
Figure 3 shows the equivalent percentage disclosure rate for voluntary
subject areas. (Two areas of voluntary disclosure are not shown in Figure 2.
Disclosure relating to customers is shown in Figure 1. Disclosure of value added
statements follows the pattern demonstrated by Burchell et al., 1985; in that it
declines steadily from a level of 40 per cent of companies in 1980 to around 6 per
cent of companies in 1991.) The overall pattern of increasing disclosure
suggested by the mandate disclosure is repeated for voluntary disclosure. This
pattern is most notable for disclosure relating to community, environmental
AAAJ 100
8,2 90
80
Percentage of sample

70
60
58 50
40
30
20
10
0
1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991
Years
Figure 2.
Social disclosure Key :
in mandatory Pensions Consultation Disabled employees
subject areas ESOPs Charity South Africa

100
90
Proportion of sample disclosing

80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991
Years

Figure 3. Key :
Social disclosure in Environmental Energy Community
voluntary subject areas General other Health and safety Employee other

issues and health and safety. The pattern for “employee other” is not especially
clear (particularly if adjustment is made for the size effect) and seems to be
composed of several factors. The growth from the mid-1980s is due largely to a
rise in disclosure of data on equal opportunities. There is also a suggestion that
levels of redundancy in the earlier years of the sample hold a direct relationship
with levels of “employee other” disclosure. The nature of the disclosure in this
category also changed over the period. While statistics on employment and
expressions of thanks to staff remained popular, the incidence of redundancy CSR: a review of
declined as the 1980s progressed and was replaced by an increasing emphasis the literature
on training and equal opportunity-related material. Finally, taken as a whole,
the data in Figure 3 offer a strong suggestion for a size effect in all areas except
health and safety.
While the broad patterns of trends in disclosure remain, a somewhat different
story is told by the volumes of disclosure shown in Figures 4 to 7. 59
Figure 4 describes the trends in social disclosures in the four broad categories
of employees, environment, community and customers. The dominance of, and
steady rise in, employee-related disclosure is striking. The rises in community
and environmental disclosure are notable, although in both cases the related
disclosure is less than a page of the annual report. Customer-related disclosure
remains very low. The data on all areas are also supportive of a size effect.
Figure 5 reflects the steady growth in the volume of total CSR throughout the
period. There has been a steady, but not dramatic, increase in mandatory dis-
closures largely reflecting changes in disclosure regulations (for employment
data and pensions and for other areas of disclosure). There has also been a
fourfold increase in voluntary disclosure over the period but some of this, as
with the mandated disclosure, is probably due to the size effect in the sample.
The rise in average volumes of disclosure of mandatory subjects is, during
the early years, attributable to the rise in the proportion of companies disclosing
(see Figure 2). With that in mind, the volume of disclosure of consultation with
employees, charitable donations and the employment of the disabled is virtually
stable throughout the period. However, the volume of disclosure from those
companies which do disclose has risen for employment data, ESOPs and
pensions (see Figure 6). Some of this disclosure may thus be interpreted as
voluntary in that it is above the minimum required. The later fall in employment

3.5

3.0
Average pages disclosed

2.5

2.0

1.5

1.0

0.5

0
1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991
Years
Figure 4.
Key : Volume of disclosure
Environmental Customer Community Employees by subject area
AAAJ 4.5
8,2 4.0
Average pages disclosed

3.5
3.0
2.5
60 2.0
1.5
1.0
0.5
0
1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991
Years
Figure 5.
Volume of social Key :
disclosure by UK Voluntary Mandatory (ex) Mandatory (+)
companies Total corporate social report

1.4

1.2
Average pages disclosed

1.0

0.8

0.6

0.4

0.2

0
1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991
Years

Figure 6. Key :
Volume of disclosure in Employment data Pensions Consultation
mandatory subject areas Disabled employees ESOPs Charity

data may possibly be interpreted as a “compensation” for the rise in pensions

and ESOPs disclosure. (This issue of “compensation” is returned to below.)
With the exception of “employee other” (which we have discussed above) the
voluntary areas of disclosure were largely unremarkable until the mid-1980s
(see Figure 7). The exception to this is the community-related disclosure which
started a slow rise from 1980 and, even allowing for a size effect, showed a
 0.9 CSR: a review of
0.8 the literature
Average pages disclosed

0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
61
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991
Years
Key :
Figure 7.
Environmental Energy Community
Volume of disclosure in
General other Health and safety Employee other voluntary subject areas

remarkable growth in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In part this is explained by
the increased percentage of companies giving attention to the issue (see Figure
3) but the volume of disclosure by those companies which disclosed also
showed a steady rise from a few lines in 1980 to around three-quarters of a page
in the early 1990s. Health and safety data also showed a small but steady
upward trend during the later part of the period – once again this trend remains,
even when adjustment is made for a size effect and the dilution caused by less
than 100 per cent of companies disclosing in this area. The most striking rise is
obviously environmental disclosure which has grown inexorably from the late
1980s[17]. Energy and “general other” (which includes missions statements and
statements of social responsibility, for example) have remained marginal areas
of disclosure.
Taken across the whole of the sample period it seems that we can divide the
period somewhere around 1985/86. Up until this time, the volume of voluntary
disclosure remained virtually constant. As a new issue arose it appeared to
replace an older issue. After 1986 this remained true for only some areas. So
while a decline in value added statements may be compensated by a rise in
health and safety disclosure, a concern for redundancy replaced by a concern
with training and equal opportunities, and (possibly) a rise in ESOP disclosure
replacing a disclosure in “employee other”, the rise in community and
environmental disclosure is quite unprecedented.
The next section attempts to provide some interpretation of these trends and
observations.

Interpreting the trends in UK social disclosure

At a general level, the most striking factor to emerge from the trends considered
above is the rise in both the proportions of companies disclosing and the range
AAAJ of that disclosure. At the end of the 1970s, UK CSR was typified by
8,2 approximately a page of employee-related disclosure plus disclosure of
charitable donations. The employee-related disclosure was dominated by
employment data plus “employee other” disclosures (predominantly thanks to
staff, discussion of redundancy and, less frequently, longitudinal statistics on
employment rates and employee turnover). To this was added a somewhat
62 patchy disclosure of employment in South Africa and information about
pensions. By the early 1990s, while employee-related disclosure still dominated
UK CSR, that disclosure covered a wider range of employee-related matters. In
addition, community and environmental disclosure had grown significantly.
Put in broad terms, between 1979 and 1991, total UK CSR rose by over four
times, employee-related disclosure fell from approximately 90 per cent of total
to about 78 per cent, and community and environmental reporting rose from
approximately 10 per cent to 32 per cent of total disclosure. Customer-related
disclosure remained at a very low level. The only area of CSR which fell
systematically was the disclosure of the value added statement.
Such an overview lends support to two of the tentative conclusions suggested
by the CSR literature discussed above. That is, the subjects of CSR change over
time and the size of companies, in the UK at least, appears to be an important
factor for most areas of voluntary CSR (we return to this latter point below).
There is, however, more to be gleaned from these data by an examination
through the lens(es) of political economy, legitimacy and stakeholder theories.
From the point of view of classical political economy, the period considered
here was one in which the Conservative party formed the government
throughout. During this period, the Conservatives sought explicitly to “roll
back the state” and develop a “capital-owning democracy” under the banner of
“liberalization” and “privatization”. This was a political agenda which sought
explicitly to redefine the employee-employer relationship (reducing the
influence of trade unions and encouraging workforce participation in the
running and ownership of the business) and to pass the traditional (British)
welfare functions of the State back to the “market”. There was thus a major
attempt to renegotiate the organization-state-society-employee relationship.
Business was asked by government (and seemed enthusiastic in its response) to
take on (as custodians of “wealth creation” and the “marketplace”) additional
responsibilities previously undertaken by state agencies. The State passed laws
to encourage disclosure of the employment of the disabled, to encourage
consultation with employees and wider share ownership. The companies
responded with a greater involvement with “the community” – in schools, in
business-in the-community schemes and so on. Despite the increase in laws
designed ostensibly to improve the conditions and dignity of employment, this
was a massive attempt to redress the “counter-hegemony” (Arnold, 1990) which
had built up during the 1970s (see Gray et al., 1987, 1988; Harte and Owen,
1987). Business, and what business thought, were the determinants of
orthodoxy. The State was explicitly active in supporting this re-empowerment
of capital.
 This is the story told by the patterns of social disclosure by UK companies. CSR: a review of
A new panoply of issues is now essential to business and its new, more liberal the literature
role in post-industrial Britain. The annual reports reflect this in wider
disclosure of share-ownership schemes, consultation with employees, training,
equal opportunities and higher community involvement, while the “old”
confrontational disclosure areas – the value added statement and trade union
disclosure – quietly fade away. UK CSR does appear to offer a plausible 63
reflection of changes in the political economy of Britain.
But the CSR data can tell us rather more than this. Note that the legislative
areas of disclosure divide neatly into those which encouraged minimum
disclosure (employment of the disabled, consultation with employees and, to a
lesser extent, employment in South Africa) and those which led to voluntary
disclosure beyond minimum compliance (ESOPs, employment data and, later,
pensions). This suggests to us that we can read these disclosure developments
very much in line with Arnold (1990) and Tinker et al. (1991). That is, while
widening the (workplace) franchise to include the disabled (it is worth noting
that equal opportunities is not a legally required area of disclosure) and
ostensibly encouraging greater involvement of the workforce in the running of
the business, these issues, as indicated by CSR, were not important matters to
business[18]. ESOPs were important matters to business. Disclosure here rose
above the minimum, as did disclosure on pensions and employment data. Why
disclosure of these latter issues rose we find difficult to assess within this
context (but see below) but the point to be made is that companies are capable
of extending their social disclosure when it matters to them. They did not do so
on consultation with employees.
Furthermore, the rise in the emphasis on ESOPs has two potential elements as
far as we can assess. First, the new language of Mrs Thatcher’s “capital-owning
democracy” required evidence of a widening of the capitalist franchise. It was
essential that a wide proportion of employees (and potential Conservative
voters?) were encouraged to switch allegiance from unions to management, from
labour to capital. Second, it was also essential that the State could point to
evidence concerning this in support of their radical, liberal programme.
Business responded by creating employee share ownership schemes and
publicizing them in the annual report. This is, however, only one part of the
possible explanation. We will return to this below.
Finally, it seems pertinent to observe that, despite the rhetoric concerning the
need to reorientate business towards the customer and customer needs which
was so prevalent in the 1980s, this does not appear to have been a factor by
which UK business was much exercised. CSR on this subject stayed low
throughout the period.
The foregoing paragraphs are derived from our understanding of classical
(or Marxian) political economy in which we have attempted to take the
criticisms of the bourgeois political economy to heart. It is our judgement (in
retrospect) that those criticisms were well-founded in that we find the above
analysis both plausible and offering important insights into the hegemony of
AAAJ Britain, its business community and the State. To derive such an analysis from
8,2 political economy argues (to us) that Marxian perspectives do indeed have
important interpretations to offer of CSR practice.
However, there are other, apparently significant trends in the data we have
reported here which, while they do not conflict with a classical political
economy perspective, are not easily explained by it. In line with our earlier
64 contention, we believe that it is necessary to sharpen the level of resolution,
within a political economy perspective. That is, many of the trends are better
understood from a (principally, more bourgeois analysis of) legitimacy theory
and stakeholder theory perspective.
Looking first at the mandatory areas of disclosure for which we were unable
to offer satisfactory political economy explanations, Lindblom’s (1994) four
strategies of legitimation offer interesting insights. While part of the trends we
observed in ESOPs disclosure could be understood as a reflection of political
economy, there is another potential side to this story. In collecting the CSR data
for this project we explicitly excluded all share ownership schemes or share
options schemes which were defined as only for “directors” or “senior
management’’[19]. It is perfectly plausible, given the way in which ESOPs are
reported that the bulk of the “employees” who own the shares and options in the
ESOPs are, despite the title of the scheme, directors and senior management.
Therefore, the reporting of ESOPs may not be entirely about the widening of the
capitalist franchise but, rather, about an attempt to justify a redistribution of
income from other stakeholders to the directors and senior management. This
would fit into Lindblom’s third strategy of “distracting attention” from the two
principal matters of, on the one hand, encouraging wider employee involvement
and, on the other, of increasing director remuneration through a legitimate (but
implicit) process of share options and share ownership.
More speculatively this “distracting of attention” strategy may help explain
the increased emphasis on the disclosure of employee data and “employee
other”. That is, as the levels of unemployment and redundancy grew in the UK
during the early 1980s, casual observation would have suggested that the bulk
of the polity was unconcerned – in general unemployment and redundancy
were a working class (traditional Labour voter) phenomenon. As the incidence
of unemployment spread to white-collar workers more concern was voiced over
company behaviour in this field. Attention could be distracted by an emphasis
on the quality of the employment offered to those with employment. Such a
strategy could then be developed by companies to merge into Lindblom’s fourth
legitimation strategy of “changing expectations”. In this sense, companies were
now “disowning” their responsibility for unemployment and emphasizing their
responsibility for those in employment.
The issue of pensions disclosure (again, somewhat speculatively) was
probably a different matter consisting of two separate elements. The late 1980s
in the UK saw two separate phenomena developing around company pension
funds. The first related to pension fund adequacy, the quality of the manage-
ment of the funds and, by contrast, an increased awareness of companies taking
“pension holidays” for reasons of either over-provision of funds or income
smoothing in the company itself. The second phenomenon related to an CSR: a review of
increased concern over pension fund impropriety – of which the most notorious the literature
case is that relating to Robert Maxwell. Within the financial community,
companies would, therefore, find themselves needing to justify and legitimate
their competence, activities and authority over these funds. Such a situation
might best be thought of as relating to Lindblom’s second legitimation strategy
of “changing perceptions” to encourage financial participants that companies 65
were indeed competent to manage pension fund issues.
Legitimacy theory also has some insights to offer concerning the trends in
environmental, health and safety, energy and customer disclosure. The
international rise in environmental disclosure has widely been commented on
(see, for example, Gray, 1993; Gray et al., 1993) and Patten (1992) has linked this
– in the petroleum industry – with a concern with legitimation. The rise in the
environmental agenda could be seen as the development of a new element of
business-society hegemony. The British government’s preference to leave the
matter to the “market” and business could be interpreted as a continuation of
the changes in political economy that we have observed above. There is some,
circumstantial support for this view at a global level (see, for example, Gray et
al., 1993) in that elements of capital have, indeed, attempted to capture the
environmental (and, especially, the sustainability) debate. This is less apparent
in the environmental disclosures we have examined. The tone, orientation and
focus of the environmental disclosure accord much more closely with
Lindblom’s first, second and third legitimation strategies. A significant
minority of companies found it necessary to “change their actual performance”
with respect to environmental interactions (Lindblom’s first strategy) and use
CSR to inform their “relevant publics” about this. Similarly, companies’
environmental disclosure has also been an attempt, first, to change perceptions
of environmental performance – to alter perceptions of whether certain indus-
tries were “dirty” and “irresponsible” (Lindblom’s second strategy) and, second,
as Lindblom notes, to distract attention from the central environmental issues
(the third legitimation strategy). Increasingly, companies are being required to
demonstrate a satisfactory performance within the environmental domain. CSR
would appear to be one of the mechanisms by which the organizations satisfy
(and manipulate) that requirement.
The growth in health and safety disclosures over the period had not been
identified previously in the CSR literature (but see Chan, 1979). It seems to have
been associated with, first, the general rise in environmental concern and,
second, more pertinently, a rise in the number of major, widely publicized
accidents involving loss of life (see, for example, Smith, 1993). As with the rise
in environmental disclosure, there is an element of this increased disclosure
which could be interpreted as additional support for the political economy
perspective considered above. That is, we could interpret the disclosure as
evidence of the State pulling back from the regulation of the workplace and
leaving the matter to companies. While we are convinced that there may be an
element of this, we are more persuaded that companies were increasingly under
pressure from various “relevant publics” to improve their performance in the
AAAJ area of health and safety and employed CSR to manage this “legitimacy gap”.
8,2 That is, while the disclosure did not, as such, demonstrate improved health and
safety records (lack of previous information makes such assessment
impossible), it did paint a picture of increasing concern being given by
companies to the matter of protecting and training their workforce. This
disclosure then helped add to the image of a competent and concerned
66 organization which took its responsibilities in this field seriously. As such,
health and safety disclosure appears to be a strong illustration of Lindblom’s
second legitimation strategy – “changing perceptions”.
The very low incidence of both energy and customer disclosures throughout
the period can also be seen in a legitimacy framework. That is, despite the
rhetoric throughout the mid-1980s (relating to the supremacy of the customer in
a “quality-seeking” organization) and during the late 1980s and early 1990s
(concerning the need for and economic advisability of energy efficiency), neither
of these issues, apparently, became a matter over which the companies’
competence or behaviour was actually called into question. Whether this was
because the relevant publics saw that companies had maintained their
legitimacy here or, more likely, the relevant publics were not exercised by the
issues is a matter for speculation. On our evidence, energy and customers were
not legitimacy issues during this period.
So, finally, increasing the level of resolution still further, can stakeholder
theory offer any insights which can enrich what has already been gleaned by
interpretations above? Stakeholder theory is a strictly organization-centred
perception and, as such, one is forced to attempt an inference of company
motive from trends in social and environmental disclosure. Furthermore, as we
have already discussed above, it is often unclear – in the empirical domain –
where stakeholder theory ends and legitimacy theory begins (see Guthrie and
Parker, 1989, 1990; Patten, 1992; Roberts, R.W., 1992). However, there is some
evidence (see Gray et al., forthcoming) that environmental disclosures were
being used by companies as an attempt to negotiate the concept of “environ-
ment”, and to determine the companies’ relationships with society in general
and the environmental pressure groups in particular. This is consistent with an
organization seeking strategically to manage a new and emerging issue with its
stakeholders while attempting to assess the extent of the power of those
stakeholders (see, for example, Roberts, R.W., 1992).
Stakeholder analysis also, it seems to us, offers a plausible explanation of the
tendency, in certain areas of disclosure, for the company to operate a system of
“compensation” in which, as a new issue rises, the disclosure on an older (and
negotiated issue) declines. The two examples which seem more obvious are the
decline in disclosures concerning redundancy and industrial relations while
data on training and equal opportunities rose; and the decline in disclosure on
value added while those on health and safety rose. Other, more limited,
“compensations” are hinted at in the data. From a stakeholder point of view, this
behaviour would be consistent with a company managing its environment
across a relatively narrow front of dominant issues. Such an interpretation is,
also, commensurate with the arguments of Roberts, R.W. (1992).
 It is apparent to us that CSR practice is a complex activity that cannot fully CSR: a review of
be explained by a single theoretical perspective or from a single level of the literature
resolution. The 13 years covered by this article have seen major changes in the
disclosure practices of UK companies which, individually and collectively, offer
insights into corporate behaviour and the role(s) that social disclosure plays in
that behaviour. There is little doubt in our minds that other theoretical analyses
from different levels of resolution could offer other observations about the 67
development of UK social reporting practice. To our way of thinking, if such
observations augment the attention given to an increasingly widespread and
complex activity and thereby recognize the legitimacy of a wider range of
voices in corporate activity, then positive and worthy steps have been taken to
attempt to challenge the current corporate hegemony and to expand the
perspective of conventional accounting.

Conclusions, summaries and future work

From a theoretical point of view, this article has been something of a recanting
of bourgeois political economy. We are persuaded that Arnold (1990) and Tinker
et al. (1991) have made telling criticisms of the prior interpretations of CSR
practice. In particular, there are aspects of developments in UK disclosure
practices which are interpreted more intelligently in the wider framework of
classical political economy. In this sense, we now accept Arnold’s point that
Guthrie and Parker’s (1990) attempt to classify CSR as simply reactive or
proactive is too simple. But, equally, we are convinced that some elements of
CSR are bourgeois and must be interpreted as such – even if such “mediations”
within the elements of capitalism might be thought to be relatively trivial from
some points of view. As such, if the lower level of resolution of political economy
is accepted then the different theoretical perspectives need not be seen as
competitors for explanation but as sources of interpretation of different factors
at different levels of resolution. In this sense, legitimacy theory and stakeholder
theory (for example) enrich, rather than compete for, our understandings of
corporate social disclosure practices. This, we believe, goes some way towards
helping resolve the difficulties that Guthrie and Parker (1989, 1990) experienced
in interpreting their very rich data sets of CSR.
On an empirical level, the data reported here clearly have demonstrated a
significant change in social disclosure behaviour throughout the period. The
interpretations we have offered for these trends are, inevitably, speculative and
further research needs to be undertaken on this longitudinal basis. Indeed, the
data set underlying the evidence reported here contains far more detail than we
have been able to report in one article (see Gray et al., 1995, for more detail).
Further, more focused examination of these data is likely to prove illuminating,
while additional years (beyond 1991) should help resolve the extent to which
certain of the patterns we have identified here are, indeed, trends.
Finally, given the attention we have paid to the Marxian project and, in
particular, to the Marxian challenges to the (typically) bourgeois analysis of
social accounting researchers, it seems appropriate to offer a final piece of
evidence which lends dramatic support to a Marxian perspective. Figure 8
AAAJ 60

8,2 Average pages

50

40

68 30

20

10

0
1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991
Figure 8. Years
UK company social
Key :
disclosure in context:
Total annual report Statutory accounts
contents of the annual
Total corporate social report Mandatory disclosure
report – relative
amounts of information Voluntary disclosure

reports the average number of pages given in annual reports to various broad
categories of information.
Puxty (1986, 1991), inter alia, has argued that CSR is, at best, a marginal
activity in company practice. Figure 8 supports his contention. Statutory
accounting has risen from about 18 pages to a little over 20 pages during the
review period. Other areas of discretionary disclosure employed by
companies (especially large companies) has risen from over ten pages to
nearly 30 pages in this time period. The rise of social disclosure from a little
over one page to nearly four-and-a-half pages, it could be argued, may not be
something we should get too excited about. Regardless of one’s point of view,
the data in Figure 8 demonstrate adequately that social and environmental
performance is still a relatively low priority for companies. This is not really
a contentious issue. The questions for researchers are, first, whether, through
increasing the attention given to this marginal activity, the importance of CSR
can be raised and, second, whether this will offer any opportunities for the
development of “counter-hegemony”. This is a political judgement. An active
involvement with CSR suggests one conclusion to that political judgement;
the activities of the classical political economists suggests another. Vive la
différence.

Notes
1. Corporate social and environmental reporting has many virtual synonyms including
corporate social (and environmental) disclosure, social responsibility disclosure and
reporting and, even, social audit. The principal terms used here are corporate social
reporting (CSR) and corporate social disclosure. We do not (consciously) consider any
differences in nomenclature to be important in this article and generally consider
“environmental reporting and disclosure” to be one facet of social reporting and disclosure.
 However, see, Parker (1986) and Mathews (1984, 1993) for discussion of other CSR: a review of
interpretations of the terminology.
2. The alleged shortage of observable practice has been compounded by the paucity of easily
the literature
accessible/computer readable data on CSR. Only in the USA has such general CSR data
been available (through the Ernst and Ernst studies – 1976 et seq.) and this source ceased
in 1978. It has been argued that easily available data are a major influence on the likelihood
of a subject becoming a major area of empirical research (see, for example, Cargile and
Bublitz, 1986). 69
3. It is common to distinguish various stakeholders in the public domain – typically, financial
stakeholders (investors and the financial community), customers, employees and local
communities. There are serious dangers in such a limited conception of “public” (Gray,
1992; Tinker et al., 1991). We deal with the simple-minded pluralism of this below.
4. Strictly speaking, any disclosure located in the annual report might be considered to be
addressed to investors and, thus, not strictly a public document. The annual report is
considered widely to be a major formal document which acts as a significant presentation
by an organization and has a major influence on perceptions of it. It also has the major
advantage of permitting recognition of the potential for conflict between the organization
as a financial entity and the organization as a social or environmental entity. Such conflicts
are central to CSR (Mathews, 1987; Owen et al., 1987). While not ignoring other forms of
communication from the company, this study follows the lead of most CSR literature and
concentrates on the annual report.
5. The very emergence of such categories reflects inevitably implicit assumptions and
conceptions of the world and society/business interactions. The absence of specific
reference to company political action and/or lobbying, to LDC involvement, social
responsibility and advertising, is an indicator of implicit omissions which, inevitably,
suggest the implicit nature of the theory which determines the inclusions. Nevertheless,
most of what passes for “mainstream” CSR can be captured in some way in these
categories and their related subcategories (see Gray et al., 1995).
6. There are obvious differences between these motivations that will affect how the resultant
CSR is interpreted. The other reasons for recognizing the differences include enabling more
pertinent international comparisons (Guthrie and Parker, 1990) and to interact with other
studies which explicitly are concerned with either response to mandated disclosure (e.g.
Perks and Butler, 1977) or an examination of voluntary disclosure (e.g. Meek and Gray,
1989).
7. These include: definition of CSR (see, for example, Mathews, 1993; Parker, 1986); the pur-
pose(s) of CSR, its legitimacy and its effects, (see, for example, Benston, 1982a, 1982b;
Parker, 1986, 1991; Puxty, 1986, 1991); exploration of why CSR does (and does not) come
about, the motivations and expectations of the reporting entities, (see, for example, Filios,
1985; Jones, 1990; Mintzberg, 1983); statistical analyses of CSR and its relationships (if any)
with corporate financial performance, other corporate factors and/or share price
performance (see, especially, Belkaoui and Karpik, 1989; Cowen et al., 1987; Ullman, 1985);
and radical critiques from both Marxist/Critical Theory and pristine Liberal Economic
Democracy perspectives (see, for example, Benston, 1982a, 1982b; Puxty, 1991; Tinker,
1985; Tinker et al., 1991).
8. The CSR research literature generally is dominated by USA investigations (see, for
example, Ullmann, 1985) but there is also extensive literature on the UK (see, for example,
Gray et al., 1987), Australia (see, for example, Guthrie and Mathews, 1985; Guthrie and
Parker, 1989; Kelly, 1981; Trotman and Bradley, 1981) and New Zealand (see, for example
Guthrie and Mathews, 1985; Robertson, 1978). Evidence is also available from, inter alia,
Canada (Brooks, 1986; Maxwell and Mason, 1976; Zeghal and Ahmed, 1990), Malaysia and
Singapore (Andrews et al., 1989; Teoh and Thong, 1984), Germany (Brockoff, 1979;
Dierkes, 1979; Dierkes and Coppock, 1978), Sweden (Ljung and Oftedal, 1977), Mexico
(Chow and Wong-Boren, 1987), Japan (Yamagami and Kokubu, 1991) and India
(Maheshwari, 1992; Singh and Ahuja, 1983). And see also Lessem (1977), Preston et al.
AAAJ (1978), Schreuder (1979), Guthrie and Parker (1990), Roberts, C.B. (1990, 1991, 1992) and
UNCTC (1992) for some comparative studies. In addition to country differences, Parker
8,2 (1986) and Guthrie and Parker (1989) have identified that attention also needs to be given
to the time dimension and that both disclosure practice and researchers’ interest and focus
are not time-invariant.
9. This refers to interest among academics, although there is a high probability that this
might also be true of the motivations of corporate management with respect to CSR.
70 10. The reasoning offered by such authors for the value of such studies mirrors those alleged
arguments offered in the mainstream accounting literature. That is the authors offer
“economic agency theory” and “positive accounting theory” as a “scientific” locus of
“truth” – a status which other (softer and underspecified) approaches (allegedly) cannot (or
do not wish to) claim.
11. In one sense it is difficult to address seriously this literature because we are wholly
convinced by the criticisms of it. So much so that we are unable to see what possible claims
to truth it can hold legitimately. It is therefore difficult to address sensibly something
which one believes to be virtual rubbish. Indeed the Messianic glint with which economic
agency theory and positive accounting theory are proselytized is seriously reminiscent of
the Inquisition. We much prefer our position as “heretics”.
12. Despite our attachment elsewhere to accountability theory (see, for example, Gray et al.,
1987, 1988, 1991), it is essentially a rights-driven conception of organizational reporting
with a high normative (or moral) dimension. While it is helpful in assessing the extent to
which empirical and moral accountability differ from each other (and, thus, providing
some guidance on some of the current failures of liberal democracy), it is not an especially
helpful perspective for the interpretation of CSR practice.
13. Indeed, organizations may approach a stakeholder analysis in a benign frame of mind.
Current work in the UK on the development of the (so-called) social audit by value-based
organizations such as Traidcraft plc is an apparently genuine and honest attempt to
understand the organization in its social context (see, for example, Zadek, 1993; Zadek and
Evans, 1992).
14. There is no necessity that stakeholder analysis should be exclusively bourgeois. It is
possible to imagine an analysis of the interplay of the various elements of capitalism
within a classical political economy perspective. It is not usual, though, to call this “stake-
holder theory”. Recent work from Lehman (1992) and Neimark (1992) might be illustrations
of this point.
15. In this context, country-specific reporting and industry-specific reporting look more
interesting for some sources of influence because influences and pressures may catch an
industry with a worldwide image (as with oil and chemicals) or a set of influences may only
lead to reaction in a specific setting. Certainly, one might reasonably expect the legislative
environment in the USA to produce different responses from that in the UK, for example
(see Arnold, 1990 and Guthrie and Parker, 1990 in this regard) and one may reasonably
expect “first nation” issues to be of greater moment in, for example, Australia and New
Zealand than in, for example, France or Germany. (By “first nations” we refer to the
aboriginal peoples – for example, Australian Aborigines, North American Indians, the
Sami – or, at least, the pre-European peoples – for example, the New Zealand Maori –
whose claims to recognition and self-realization have been heard more widely in recent
years.) Similarly, one might be able to speculate about the inconsistent size effects. Size is
probably not a continuous function with respect to CSR in that: first, small, localized
organizations may experience other channels of communications and transparency (see,
for example, Gray, 1992); and, second, financial size is likely to be less important than
political presence and public visibility. Certainly, as an illustration, size and industry
factors would not be enough to distinguish those organizations producing high-profile
environmental reports in the UK in the early 1990s from those which did not. Whereas
other factors, such as public profile and commitment of CEOs, would provide a crude basis
 for differentiation (see, for example, Bebbington et al., 1994; Gray et al., 1993; Gray and CSR: a review of
Owen, 1993).
16. There is just one caveat we would make at this stage. The data are drawn from two the literature
samples. The first sample (relating to 1979-1987) is a haphazard sample and includes a
wide range of companies by size. The second sample (1988-1991) concentrates exclusively
on the UK’s largest 100 companies. This matter is examined in some detail in Gray et al.
(forthcoming) and it is apparent that there will be a notable “size effect” in the data between
1987 and 1988. This will be recognized in the interpretation and each of the graphs shows 71
a line at the intersection of the two samples.
17. Detailed environmental disclosure was only collected from 1988 onwards. Over the 1988-
1991 period environmental disclosure was dominated by disclosure on products and
processes, “environmental other” and, to a lesser extent, environmental policy. The really
significant issues of environmental audit and the financial effects of the environment were
reported by very few companies. Sustainability was mentioned by no companies in 1988
and by only five in 1991.
18. This attitude is closely in line with the UK government’s consistent and adamant refusal to
embrace the EU proposals for either worker representation on the company board of
directors or the Social Chapter.
19. This is one of the issues on which much discussion took place as to whether this should be
considered CSR. See Gray et al. (forthcoming).

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Appendix: Descriptions of categories of disclosure

Total disclosure: all defined CSR.
Mandatory disclosure:
● charity donations;
● consultation with employees;
● South Africa;
● employee share ownership (ESOPs);
● employment of disabled.
Mandatory plus:
● mandatory disclosure; plus
● employment data;
● pension commitment.
Voluntary disclosure: all other disclosure
Human resource disclosure:
● consultation with employees;
● South Africa;
● employee share ownership;
● employment of disabled;
● employment data;
● pension commitments;
● value added statements;
● health and safety;
● employee other.
Environmental disclosure:
● environment;
● energy;
● health and safety; (note: health and safety features twice in the subtotals but only once in
the summary totals).
Community disclosure:
● community;
● charity;
● general other.

Customer disclosure:
● consumer.