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Corporate Social and Environmental Disclosure in Developing Countries: Evidence from Bangladesh

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University of Wollongong

Research Online
Faculty of Commerce - Papers Faculty of Commerce

2006

Corporate Social and Environmental Disclosure in Developing Countries: Evidence from Bangladesh
M. Hossain
Hail Community College, Saudi Arabia, monirulhossain@yahoo.com

K. Islam
University of Wollongong, mksi747@uow.edu.au

J. Andrew
University of Wollongong, jandrew@uow.edu.au

Publication Details
This conference paper was originally published as Hossain, MA, Islam, KS and Andrew, J, Corporate social and environmental disclosure in developing coutries: evidence from Bangladesh, in Proceedings of the Asian Pacific Conference on International Accounting Issues, Hawaii, October 2006.

Research Online is the open access institutional repository for the University of Wollongong. For further information contact Manager Repository Services: morgan@uow.edu.au.

Corporate Social and Environmental Disclosure in Developing Countries: Evidence from Bangladesh
Abstract

This is an exploratory study designed to investigate the extent and nature of social and environmental reporting in corporate annual reports. Specifically, we examine the relationship between social and environmental disclosure and several corporate attributes in a developing country, Bangladesh. In order to do this, we have developed and utilized a disclosure index to measure the extent of disclosure made by companies in corporate annual reports. This study reports significant differences in levels of social and environmental disclosure, as measured by the mean values of the social and environmental disclosure index in Bangladesh. This study reports that a very few companies in Bangladesh are making efforts to provide social and environmental information on a voluntary basis, which are mostly qualitative in nature. Companies in Bangladesh appeared to have the lowest levels of social and

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