Good evening Everyone, before our presentation I’d like to ask several questions,
(SEE slides)
So now can you guess what topic is this article for our presentation today?? Or what are the key factors for discussion today?
(找人回答)
Yes they’re “culture” “corporate social disclosure” and “stakeholder theory”, which we kept mentioning in our last several weeks. And these are exactly the components to be covered in the topic that we are going to talk about: Read Topic
This article is written by “Rene” from Leiden University, who is also a friend of our professor John, it was published in March 2010, on the journal called ‘Accounting, Auditing, and accountability’
Before I officially start, I’d like to introduce our team members : Sabrina, Selina, Vivian, and me myself Jenny, Oh god I hate to say my name coz I really wish one day I have the same English level with the other Jenny in our class, but it’s like a dream~~
OK let’s start, so the main purpose of this article is to investigate whether corporate social disclosure levels relate to national cultures. And here is a brief answer for what is culture, culture is the way you think, act and interact.
Firstly, we need to give several definitions: the first one is corporate social responsibility. Corporate social responsibility (CSR, also called corporate conscience, corporate citizenship, social performance, or sustainable responsible business, is a form of corporate self-regulation, integrated into a business model. CSR policy functions as a built-in, self-regulating mechanism whereby a business monitors and ensures its active compliance with the spirit of the law, ethical standards, and international norms. In some models, a firm's implementation of CSR goes beyond compliance and engages in "actions that appear to further some social good, beyond the interests of the firm and that which is required by law."

The next one is “corporate social disclosure” , just as its name implies, it means companies disclose did they undertake their corporate social responsibility, how they fulfill this responsibility, and to what extent did they fulfill it.
The responsibility of corporate social disclosure used to relate only to the impact of the company on the welfare of society and how it managed that impact along with ethical business decisions. However, in recent years, the scope of corporate social disclosure has grown to include sustainability and the environmental impact of business activities.

Examples are information on their commitments to reducing hazardous impacts on the environment, to improving waste management, to showing the compliance with the Environmental Quality Regulation, to making efforts to protect their employees and other social issues affecting the public. A trend towards increasing levels of disclosure has been observed. However, the levels of disclosures are still low.

4.Companies are required by the Corporations Act 2001 and the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) 'Listing Rules' to produce annual reports on their performance in terms of profitability and liquidity. These must be available to external users such as shareholders. It is mandatory for a company to produce annual financial statements. Now companies are also voluntarily including statements about their social responsibilities in annual reports.
Generally, Companies report on three aspects of their performance: financial results; impact on society; and environmental impact. Reporting on three aspects has been described as a triple bottom line which we have already learnt about in our week 7 lecture.

What’s the author’s “main aim in writing the journal article and what motivated them to write the article? (Was there a problem they wanted to investigate?)
Firstly, Research on corporate social responsibility and its related corporate social disclosures was deemed to be benefit for society. Specialists are still searching for motives for corporate social disclosure and want to