Resumo:
The objective of this paper is to identify the factors that explain voluntary social and environmental disclosure, as there is not a standard that requires companies to disclose these kind of information in Brazil. The underpinning theory for this study is the Discretionary-Based Disclosure, which treats disclosure endogenously, by considering managers’ incentive to disclose information that is not mandatory. Information has been gathered from Financial Statements for the year ended in 2007 with the use of content analysis. Sample is composed by the largest non-financial companies listed in the Bolsa de Valores de São Paulo (BOVESPA). In order to explain social and environmental disclosure, 11 hypotheses have been formulated, based on the existing literature, regarding firm’s sector, auditing firm, leverage, internationalization, stock issuing, ownership concentration, origin of control, profitability, corporate governance, size and corporate sustainability. Multiple regression analysis has generated a model that is able to explain 48% of social and environmental disclosure. Also, seven variables are statistically relevant at a significance level of 10%: size, profitability, leverage, sector, internationalization, origin of control and sustainability. Also, with the exception of leverage, all these variables have a positive relation with the disclosure. |
