AAAJ
8,2
78
Accounting, Auditing &
Accountability Journal, Vol. 8
No. 2, 1995, pp. 78-101. © MCB
University Press, 0951-3574
Methodological themes
Constructing a research database of
social and environmental reporting by
UK companies
Rob Gray, Reza Kouhy and Simon Lavers
Department of Accounting and Business Finance, University of Dundee,
Dundee, Scotland
Introduction
Over the last ten years, the programme of research by Guthrie, Mathews and
Parker has significantly developed our understanding of the practice of social
and environmental reporting and disclosure[1] by companies (see, for example,
Cowen et al., 1987; Guthrie and Mathews, 1985; Guthrie and Parker, 1989, 1990;
Mathews, 1993). Along with the theoretical issues they raise (see Gray et al.,
1995), the Guthrie, Mathews and Parker project has illustrated several
methodological issues which arise in attempts to research the phenomenon of
social and environmental reporting (CSR hereafter). More specifically, the
Guthrie et al. project has illustrated, inter alia; problems with defining and
identifying CSR; a lack of easily accessible data; difficulties of data capture; the
need for longitudinal studies; the difficulties of inter-temporal and inter-country
comparison; differences in research approach; and the difficulties in identifying
– and seeking to reconcile – these differences in method.
It was a concern to try to address these methodological issues that motivated
the development of the social and environmental disclosure database project
reported here. The principal intention was for the project to provide a (publicly
available) computer-readable database of UK social disclosure through time.
It seemed that there were two essential characteristics that the database must
possess if it was to be usable on a wide basis. These were:
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, Ailsa Nicholson, David Owen, David Power
and Clare Roberts. Especial thanks go to Sue Gray who undertook much of the replication analy-
sis reported in the article and to Lee Parker and James Guthrie whose thoughtful comments on
the structure of the article were particularly helpful.
The financial assistance and advice of the Research Board of the Institute of Chartered
Accountants in England and Wales on this project are gratefully acknowledged.
 (1) the definitions, frameworks and methods must conform as closely as Constructing a
possible with the mainstream CSR literature; database of CSR
(2) the research instrument, method and methodology must be as
transparent and replicable as possible.
In addition, the database should have a useful sample; be accessible; and
respond to the apparent concerns voiced from time to time in the CSR literature. 79
This last point also, in effect, counsels that the database should be flexible.
Finally, the data should provide a reasonable run of years for researchers once
it is publicly available.
For these reasons, it appeared that the best strategy was: to follow the
approach taken by Guthrie[2] as closely as possible (see below); to develop the
research instrument and method in much greater detail than has previously
been the case, in terms of publicly available information at least; and to
maintain the database in the simplest, most common computer software.
In 1986 an approach was made to the ICAEW Research Board for funding to
build a database of social disclosure by UK companies. It was intended to use
content analysis to analyse 500 companies over a period of ten years. The
Research Board (correctly) identified this as too ambitious and funded a pilot
survey on 1979-1987 data. The basic research on this was completed in 1990
when a much shorter version of the accompanying article (Gray et al., 1995) was
presented at conferences and submitted to ICAEW with an end-of-award report.
Since then, work has continued on tidying up the data, testing the reliability of
the research instrument and experimentation with methods of assessing the
(non-)generalizability of the 1979-1987 data. On completion of the 1979-1987
sample, a new sample of the top 100 UK companies was drawn and observa-
tions added for 1988-1991 (the “continuing database” hereafter).
The results of this and some initial overall findings are reported in Gray et al.
(1995) (this issue). The detailed method, methodology and lessons are reported
in this article.
This article is organized around the different decisions which were made in
the process of developing the database. The following section provides a brief
introduction to the issues arising with the use of content analysis with
subsequent sections expanding on the elements of the research process that
have arisen from this approach to content analysis. Definition(s) of CSR are then
considered, as is the location of data reported by companies. The resolution of
the measurement and data capture issues is explained and the implications of
“shared meanings” and replication are examined. The penultimate section
considers the samples of data employed in the database, and the final section
addresses briefly the potential development of the database and how
researchers can access this material. The article also contains four appendices
which give more detailed information about the data capture process.
All methods of data collection must, of necessity, impose some structure on,
and involve some simplification of, the phenomena being examined – perhaps
even to the point of being misleading. In doing so, the researcher effectively
AAAJ constructs some (new) social reality (Hines, 1988) which, while it may be able to
8,2 claim some significant correspondence with “facts”, nevertheless may say more
about the researcher’s conception of reality than about any potentially objective
reality which underlies it (see, for example, Burrell and Morgan, 1979; Morgan,
1983, 1986, 1988; but also see Silverman, 1993). In what follows, therefore, every
attempt has been made to keep the description both transparent and as close to
80 the researcher’s interpretation of mainstream CSR meanings as possible. The
reasons for this will (it is hoped) become more apparent.

Content analysis
The data collection for the database was achieved by means of a form of content
analysis. Content analysis (see, for example, Holsti, 1969; Krippendorf, 1980)
has been widely employed in CSR research (Abbott and Monsen, 1979; Ernst
and Ernst, 1976 et seq.; Guthrie and Mathews, 1985; Maxwell and Mason, 1976;
Zeghal and Ahmed, 1990), although it is less common in the more conventional
areas of accounting research (but see, for example, Neimark, 1983; Parker, 1986;
and especially Lehman, 1992, pp. 79-84 and pp. 85-90). Content analysis is
usefully defined by Abbott and Monsen (1979, p. 504) as:
a technique for gathering data that consists of codifying qualitative information in anecdotal
and literary form into categories in order to derive quantitative scales of varying levels of
complexity.

It can take many forms of differing levels of complexity. The Ernst and Ernst
studies (1976 et seq.) were effectively just a count of the number of instances of
a particular event – a particular CSR disclosure. Such an approach has also
been the basis for the UK’s “Survey of Published Accounts” (Maunders, 1981,
1982; Tonkin and Skerratt, 1991, 1992). However, several CSR authors (Abbott
and Monsen, 1979; Beresford and Cowen, 1979; Bowman and Haire, 1975;
Zeghal and Ahmed, 1990) and, especially, Guthrie and Mathews (1985) develop
this to provide some assessment of the volume of disclosure. The value of this
lies in the assumption that the extent of disclosure can be taken as some
indication of the importance of an issue to the reporting entity (Krippendorf,
1980)[3]. The Guthrie and Mathews (1985) approach to content analysis is
employed in this article and the Ernst and Ernst approach is largely subsumed
within it.
One of the principal characteristics of content analysis is that the data
collected should meet tests which suggest that they are “objective”,
“systematic” and “reliable”, (Krippendorf, 1980). Further, these tests imply –
and the method of content analysis requires – that the whole process employs
“shared meanings”. In effect this means that definitions employed in the data
collection are negotiated to achieve “shared meanings” which recreate the same
referents in all the associated researchers. This matter of definition and shared
meaning is dealt with below and returned to again towards the end of the
article.
Definition Constructing a
A prerequisite for any research is some definition of the thing to be researched. database of CSR
For content analysis this definition has to be precise and unique. That is, the
“objectivity” criterion requires that independent judges would be able to
identify similarly what was and was not CSR, while the systematic criterion
requires a set of exhaustive rules which will determine the category “CSR” and
the subcategories (if any) in a mutually exclusive and all-embracing manner. 81
Inevitably one is dealing with the usual tautology of definition but in a more
than usually precise manner. That is, what falls within the rules becomes CSR;
that which falls outside is not CSR[4]. Hence one ends up with a set of rules
which define CSR. The “correctness” of that definition is then a negotiated
matter between the (to use the Kuhnian analogy) scientists working in that
paradigm.
Mainstream CSR literature identifies four major themes for CSR: natural
environment; employees; community; and customers[5]. Four problems
immediately surface. First, there will inevitably be disclosures which one might
believe instinctively to be CSR but which fall outside these categories[6]. This
necessitates the addition of an “other” category. The existence of this category
contradicts the content analysis rules of exclusivity and so must be analysed
separately. However, the “other” category may also succeed in capturing any
“new” meanings of CSR as they emerge. Second, these categories do not permit
an easy separation of voluntary versus regulated/mandated disclosure – an
issue of particular importance in the Guthrie and Parker (1990) study. Further
subcategories are necessary for this and will obviously vary from country to
country as well as over time. (See Appendix 1 for a résumé of mandated
disclosure in the UK.) Third, for as much comparability as possible, it is
advisable to follow the Ernst and Ernst subcategories (see Appendix 2) – while
noting that these, in turn, changed over time. The very act of allowing for a
mandated/voluntary distinction makes this impossible – as for example on the
disclosure of political and charitable donations in the UK (see Guthrie and
Parker, 1990). Similarly, many of the Ernst and Ernst categories would stay at
or near zero for the UK – for example the advancement of minorities – and
would thus be less than useful categories. Finally, changes over time will make
previously marginal categories too narrow and cumbersome – as for example
with “environment” which was not a well-developed category in the UK until
the early 1990s when it exploded and any number of subcategories might be
possible (see, for example, Harte and Owen, 1991, 1992; Kirkman and Hope,
1992).
Thus, the definition of CSR must be arbitrary or clumsy or some combination
of these. Attempting to resolve these conundrums, while keeping a degree of
comparability with previous studies, led to the categories shown in Appendix 3.
The categories were defined by the decision rules shown in Appendix 4. (The
full structure of the database is shown in Appendix 5.) The conundrum was
further resolved by the use of blank fields within the database to be used as a
“notepad’ to record elements of the data which otherwise would be lost (for
AAAJ example, the category “employee other” included statements on racial and
8,2 sexual equality). When certain categories become overly complex, the notepad
can be used to add additional fields in a relatively simple manner.
The database recognizes explicitly that “shared definitions” (see below) will
change over time and that events themselves will cause changes in action and in
perceptions. Thus, an explicit facility to develop the definition(s) is built into the
82 structure of the data capture[7]. The result is, at least, transparent and
replicable, even if it fails to meet an ideal of a fixed and perfect definition.

Location of social disclosure

There would appear to be two major issues relating to the location of data. The
first issue concerns which documents are to define CSR and what importance is
to be placed on each one. The second issue relates to where in a particular
document (especially the annual report) the data reside and what importance
these then have. The present version of the database distinguishes between data
which are reported in or through the annual report and “other” reports (e.g.
reports to employees). The database, however, makes no distinction about the
whereabouts of the data within, for example, the annual report.
The first of these issues has exercised the literature (see, for example, Guthrie
and Mathews, 1985; Guthrie and Parker, 1990; Kirkman and Hope, 1992;
Roberts, 1991; Zeghal and Ahmed, 1990). All forms of data reaching the public
domain can be considered to be part of the accountability-discharge activity
and, thus, not only annual reports and dedicated employee and environmental
reports but also advertising, house magazines and press notices, for example,
can be seen as part of CSR (see, for example, Zeghal and Ahmed, 1990). Ideally,
therefore all communications by an organization should be monitored if one is
to capture all CSR by an entity. There is a major practical problem with this, as
Zeghal and Ahmed discovered. It simply proves impossible to be certain that
one has identified all communications.
For the present purposes, this matter has been resolved on pragmatic grounds
and, in keeping with the majority of the literature, the annual report is used as
the principal focus of reporting (but see reference to [9] below). There is some
justification for this. The annual report not only is a statutory document,
produced regularly, but it also represents what is probably the most important
document in terms of the organization’s construction of its own social imagery
(Hines, 1988; Neimark, 1992). The construction of the financial image of the
organization is critical in terms of how the organization is seen and judged. The
social and environmental factors frequently will produce conflicts with the
financial ambitions of the organization and its owners. The presentation, within
the same document or reporting process, of the financial on the one hand and the
social and environmental on the other, becomes an important element in
demonstrating the extent (if at all) to which the organization reconciles these
matters. One could continue in this vein discussing the importance of
information to the primary stakeholders (that is, shareholders), that such
information is produced regularly and will be public domain information, and
that the annual reporting process tends to be a legitimate area of concern for Constructing a
accountants[8], but such arguments as can be marshalled are ultimately database of CSR
unconvincing unless one is persuaded by the importance of the annual report as
a means of communication and social construction. The present (and continuing)
database, in line with the vast bulk of the CSR literature, adopts this position[9].
The second major issue of location concerned the place of CSR within a
document. This matter is, if anything, even more difficult to resolve 83
satisfactorily. Considering just the annual report, various arguments (see
Kirkman and Hope (1992) for a review) have proposed that location of
information is important because:
● it is more likely to be read (Chairman’s Statement);
● it indicates the importance attached to the issues (Separate Section or
Separate Booklet);
● it falls within the auditor’s ambit (Statutory Sections);
● it is covered by the auditor and demonstrates the high profile of the issue
and/or its integration with mainstream matters of the company
(Directors’ Report);
● it is fully integrated with the mainstream activities of the organization
(Review of the Year).
All of which are persuasive reasons but certainly fail to permit a single, unique
choice as to why any one location should be preferred. Furthermore, the CSR
literature (as far as we are aware) has yet, first, to draw any persuasive
conclusions from the location of disclosures; second, to provide any guidance on
how data on a particular topic (e.g. redundancies) which might well appear in
several sections of the document are to be interpreted; and third, to deal with the
danger that, if “location” is imposed on the data, some of its richness might well
be lost (Guthrie and Mathews, 1985; Guthrie and Parker, 1989, 1990). Since we
felt unable to take any guidance from the literature on this matter, the database
ignores location within documents.

Measurement and data capture

Having determined (however arbitrarily) the “what” and “where” of CSR, it is
necessary to determine the “how” to capture the data[10]. The literature
generally follows one of two paths: the number of disclosures or the amount of
disclosures. Both approaches have their value, although most of the literature –
in line with the reasoning of content analysis – suggests that the latter, although
involving more work, provides the richer data set and will, in many instances,
encompass automatically the first (Cowen et al., 1987; Guthrie and Mathews,
1985). The present research concentrates on the amount of disclosure. There is
some, not inconsequential, debate around the “unit of analysis” one should use
in content analysis. The preferred units of analysis in written communications
tend to be words, sentences and pages[11]. The cases for use of the different
units revolve around the unit of meaning and the extent to which each unit can
AAAJ legitimately be employed to draw the appropriate inferences. The most
8,2 systematic analysis in accounting of this matter is made by Neimark (1983) and
Parker (1986) and the arguments are summarized in Guthrie and Mathews
(1985). In essence, words have the advantage of lending themselves to more
exclusive analysis (are categorized more easily) and have the pragmatic
advantage that databases may be scanned for specified words. Sentences are to
84 be preferred if one is seeking to infer meaning. Pages, however, tend to be the
preferred unit as this reflects the amount of total space given to a topic and, by
inference, the importance of that topic (see also Krippendorf, 1980). Prag-
matically, pages are also the easier (and more reliable) unit to measure by hand
(Guthrie and Parker, 1989, 1990)[12].
The loss of information from considering only pages can be mitigated to a
degree by attempting to assess the quality and type of the data communicated.
Again, this follows from the Guthrie and Mathews’ (1985) review of the
literature which suggests that both “evidence” and “news” need to be assessed.
That is, some sense of the quality of the evidence can be gained from, first,
whether the statements made are quantitative (financial or other numeric) or
declarative and, second, whether the statements refer to events which reflect
well, badly or neutrally on the reporting entity. These data are collected in the
database and the rules governing their collection are outlined in Appendix 4.
Finally, two further elements were added to the data collection. A distinction
was drawn between text and pictures in response to a recognition that such
different approaches to communication might imply different intentions by the
reporting entity. While these data were collected for the 1979-1987 sample, it is
not at all clear what, if any, inferences might be drawn from the data. As a result
this distinction is dropped in the continuing (1988) database. In its place is
added a category relating to the “auditability” of data. This attempts to
distinguish between data which could, in principle, be verified by an
independent third party from that which is simply assertive. Further, it was
recognized that the “unexpected” was bound to occur and it would seem
inappropriate to ignore it just because there was no category for it within the
database. As a result spare “notepad” fields were established in each record for
comments, subcategories of data or whatever might arise. These can then be
analysed separately to enrich and/or help explain the basic data.
Each document in the sample was read by a single researcher (see below,
though, for replication) and the data collected manually. The proportions of
pages, to the nearest 1 per cent of a standard A4 page, were measured using a
grid and the resultant number(s) transferred manually to sheets on which were
printed the structure of the database (see Appendix 5). This permitted
additional data in the same category to be added to the sheet and any matters
deserving note to be added as each document was read. The data on the sheets
were then transferred to dBase periodically[13]. The sheets were retained for
query and, most importantly, for replication (see below). The dBase format
permitted one computer record per document analysed[14].
 The final element of the data records was the collection of background data. Constructing a
These background data related to company size, profitability, ownership and database of CSR
industry sector as the easily observable factors which appear to have had any
explanatory power over the CSR behaviour of companies in the prior literature.
The literature is equivocal on which size measures are the most useful as
explanatory variables and so the database collects capital employed, turnover,
numbers employed and data on market capitalization. Profitability was 85
reflected in net earnings before interest and taxation (NEBIT) and the industry
sector data derived from a conflation of the London Stock Exchange Industry
Groups in the light of Sudarsanam (1984). The data were taken from The Times
1000 data wherever possible, and otherwise from the reports themselves. The
details are given in Appendix 6.

Shared meaning and replication

Despite the importance of the principal advantages/requirements of using
content analysis, these issues have not been addressed extensively in the CSR
literature. That is, the use of content analysis either demands, or at a minimum
implies strongly, that the categories of analysis are derived by reference to
shared meanings and that the data collection and analysis must be replicable.
Some of the reasons for seeking shared meanings (to permit communication
with other researchers, to relate to other research and to permit a wide cross-
section of the mainstream CSR researchers to use the database) have already
been mentioned. In effect, we have attempted to make our own definitions
explicit, examine them carefully and then adjust them in line with what we
perceive to be more mainstream definitions. Ultimately, the definitions must
have a degree of our perceptions and predispositions in them – albeit shaped by
our personal perceptions of how others have reacted to our definitions[15]. In so
far as it has proved possible to assess, the process of communicating, reworking
and replicating the database appears to have produced a set of definitions
which are accepted widely.
While this seeking of shared meaning progressed, a process of reliability
testing and replication was also developing. In the very early stages, it proved
necessary to run through the first 50 records several times until the categories
felt “right” and were workable. Subsequent reworks became necessary to deal
with questions like “should political donations be included?”, “should statutory
employment data be included?” – the answers to these, from the exploration of
shared meaning, seemed to be “yes” and this involved changing the database
and re-doing the data collection. This process, and the subsequent analysis of
hundreds of records, allowed the researchers to induce rules defining categories.
Towards the end of the research, it was possible to bring another three
researchers into the study, and this permitted a further stage in the explication
of meaning and replication. First, the researchers re-analysed a selection of
records. Differences, often major, were identified and discussed[16]. On the basis
of this, the rules for definition of the categories were developed further. This
AAAJ process was repeated until no noticeable differences between the co-researchers
8,2 arose. (The results of this are in Appendix 4.) Then 30 records were analysed by
three researchers independently but using the definitions shown in Appendix 6.
The resultant analysis sheets were themselves scrutinized. These three sets of
30 sheets each included anything up to 100 observations. Five differences of
substance were discovered (omissions by one or other researcher) but, beyond
86 this, only rounding of measurement errors and minor differences in judgement
as to the categorization of a datum were apparent. Omissions and differences
from time to time seem inevitable and can only be prevented by complete
replication, which is, unfortunately, far too labour-intensive and, hence,
impracticable. Errors arising from the rounding of measurement also seem
inevitable given the diversity of fonts, prints, graphic styles and other printing
and design decisions. These errors are considered, intuitively rather than
claiming any statistical legitimation, to be within quite acceptable bounds.
Finally, in the data collection for the post-1987 sample, the data were collected
by three researchers. Specific provision was made to ensure that a proportion
(about 10 per cent) of documents were analysed by more than one researcher.
Any differences were identified, analysed and investigated. The resultant data
structure is shown in Table I.

Theme Evidence Amount Auditable News

Voluntary
Environment
(plus more detailed
analysis in later
sample)
Energy
Consumers Monetary Can the Good
Community statements
Value added Non-monetary Percentages of be verified? Bad
Health and safety quantitative pages (added to
Employee other later sample) Neutral
General other Declarative
Equal opportunity

Required
Charitable donations
Employment data
Pensions data
Consultations with
employees
South Africa
Employment of
Table I. disabled
The structure of CSR ESOPs
data collection
Drawing the samples Constructing a
While the principles of sampling a population in order to draw inferences about database of CSR
that population are well-established, practice is often more difficult. Indeed the
accounting literature frequently is silent on the matters of population
identification, stratification, homogeneity and sample bias. In the UK CSR
literature, four approaches have been taken:
(1) selection of the largest companies (see, for example, Guthrie and Parker,
87
1990; Hall and Jones, 1991; Roberts, 1990);
(2) a selection of large, medium and unlisted companies (see, for example,
the ICAEW’s survey of published accounts; see, for example, Gray et al.,
1987; Kirkman and Hope, 1992; Maunders, 1981, 1982; Tonkin and
Skerratt, 1991);
(3) a broader selection from The Times 1000[17] (as in Company Reporting
– see, for example, July 1991 and September 1992);
(4) a selection of “interesting” or “best practice” exemplars (see, for
example, Harte and Owen, 1991, 1992).
Each of these has its own value but each offers the possibility of different
inferences and none can be said to be representative of UK companies as a
whole. Because of the longitudinal nature of this project and the greater detail
that is collected for the database than is the case in the other studies, time and
labour were major constraints. As a result, the database contains two samples:
a haphazard sample of companies from 1979-1987; and a sample consisting of
the top 100 companies for 1988-1991. These are explained below.

Pilot sample: 1979-1987

This is a haphazard sample of 444 observations (company annual reports) over
nine years[18]. Not only does the sample contain (inevitably unidentified) bias in
selection but also, because it covers nine years, there are many missing
observations (for example, annual reports which could not be obtained because
they were out of print). This sample has been used to refine and develop the
research method and to explore the sort of hypotheses that might be derivable
in a political economy framework. However, it would also be useful if the data
themselves for 1979-1987 could be relied on as conveying something about UK
CSR practice. As a haphazard sample, it is obvious that no reliable and
statistical inferences can be drawn; however, an ex post analysis suggests that
the sample may not be entirely inconsistent with overall CSR behaviour in the
UK’s larger companies.
In broad terms, the 1979-1987 sample is dominated by The Times 1000
companies (over 90 per cent falling into this group) and companies are spread
throughout The Times 1000 range in terms of size. Furthermore, and purely
fortuitously, all industry sectors are covered in broadly the sorts of proportions
one might expect from the distribution of industry sectors in The Times 1000,
(see also Appendix 6). Without claiming too much for this, the haphazard
AAAJ sample appears to be one from which broad inferences of trends may be
8,2 possible with care. Again fortuitously, a comparison with the findings and
conclusions of previous studies on UK companies using wider samples does not
show the haphazard sample to be dramatically out of line with them. Indeed, the
conclusions reached by Burchell et al. (1985); Gray et al. (1987), Guthrie and
Parker (1990); Maunders (1981, 1982), Roberts (1990) can also been drawn from
88 the present sample[19].
As a result, and without wishing to be mendacious, if treated with care, broad
inferences about trends in UK CSR practice can be drawn from this sample. We
believe it is not possible to go beyond this.

Continuing sample: 1988-1991

It was decided that a sample of the 100 largest UK companies (as per The Times
1000) would be the most useful for several reasons. First, despite the difficulty
in identifying a size effect in CSR practice it is apparent that a sample of large
companies is more likely to demonstrate examples of CSR, and in particular
innovative examples, than an equivalent sample of medium or small companies.
Thus, in terms of tracking trends, identifying innovations and capturing more
CSR, a large company sample seems to be recommended. Second, a sample of
the largest UK companies will be more comparable – on size at least – with a
majority of other studies which sample from the largest companies. Third,
obtaining the annual reports and other documents from the largest 100 proves
to be much more reliable than for other samples[20].
The consequence of this is that the analysis of the broad trends in the UK CSR
contained in the database treats the two samples as one and, with the exception of
an apparent size effect, it is not obvious that interpretation is seriously impaired.

Development of, and access to, the database

There seems little doubt that the database will, from time to time, need further
development – not least as new issues emerge and legislation changes. For the
immediate future, the principal aim is to add further years of the UK’s top 100
companies in order to extend the data set and keep it up to date. No further
refinement of the method or sample seems necessary at this stage. Whether this
aim can be satisfied will (obviously) depend on resources.
The secondary aim is to increase the ease with which the database can be
accessed and used by other researchers. This, similarly, depends on the
availability of resources. The database currently sits on a PC and is run in dBase
III plus(or dBaseIV). The whole database is contained on two 3.5-inch floppy
disks. The initial analysis of the data is via a spreadsheet like Lotus123 or Quattro
Pro. From the spreadsheet, the database can easily be loaded into a statistical
package (e.g. Minitab or SPSS) for more sophisticated statistical analysis. The
documents to which the records relate are stored in the Centre for Social and
Environmental Accounting Research in the Department of Accountancy and
Business Finance at the University of Dundee. Access to these data has, so far,
been restricted to colleagues (and members of the Centre) who have visited
Dundee. This restriction has arisen because of the time that would be necessary
to copy and tidy up disks for the use of others without direction and consultation. Constructing a
It is still our intention to make the data freely available on disk – and eventually, database of CSR
via computer network – but scarce resources mean that current requests for the
data will take some time to expedite[21]. Whatever your views, please do contact
the Centre if these data, their replication or extension are of interest or use to you.

Notes 89
1. Within this article the terms “social and environmental reporting” and “social and
environmental disclosure” – which generally refer, respectively, to the process of disclosure
and the disclosure itself – are used as virtual synonyms. In both cases we are referring to
self-disclosure made by the companies and we are, as will become apparent, concentrating
on disclosures in the companies’ annual reports.
2. Guthrie’s approach relates to and incorporates much of the Ernst and Ernst (1976 et seq.)
database of social disclosures. The Ernst and Ernst database was the first of its kind and
was the staple data source for US researchers in CSR for many years.
3. Content analysis can be developed further to the point where it is very close to protocol
analysis (Bouwman, 1985). In both content and protocol analysis the central idea is one of
semiotics – the attempt to derive an indication of the meanings, motivations and intentions
of the communicator from communication (for particularly useful accounting illustrations
see Lehman, 1992, Chs 4 and 5; Tinker et al. 1991).
4. There is no way out of this. Definitions of CSR (see, for example, Gray et al., 1987) are
generally too exclusive – ultimate and complete effects of organizational action are
unknowable and therefore incommunicable – or too all-embracing – all organization
activities have social and environmental effects and all (say financial) data can be said to be
relevant to the social and environmental domain.
5. There is some distinction between the themes (the subject of CSR) and the stakeholders to
whom CSR is directed – most notably with respect to the natural environment where the
environment itself will usually not be considered a stakeholder as such. Further work
needs to be done to refine this thinking. Similarly, the role of the financial community is
often ignored in CSR as their interests are already fully considered (see, for example, Owen
et al., 1987). There is some dispute over this perception (see Woodward, 1993) and, again,
further work is needed to clarify thinking here.
6. Among the more obvious examples are mission statements, statements of social
responsibility and political statements which appear from time to time in UK company
annual reports.
7. Ultimately such decisions about the size and structure of the records are also influenced
heavily by matters of practicality. While provision could be made to capture both richness
and specificity in the data, this would lead to records containing an exceptionally large
number of fields. Not only does this begin to influence the ease with which the database
can be managed but also it has considerable implications for the time taken to capture and
enter the data. The very first attempt at producing the database structure had nearly 200
fields. Subsequently, this detail was traded-off against time and practicability for the
current database – see Appendix 5.
8. See, for example, the discussion in Accounting Standards Committee (1975).
9. For a number of reasons – principal among which is the desire to monitor interesting
changes in CSR which do not appear in the annual report – procedures were adopted to
capture other forms of reporting from companies when this proved possible. As a result,
further distinctions then have to be drawn between: the annual report itself;
supplementary information accompanying the report; that which can be obtained via the
annual report (e.g. the reports on employment in South Africa); that which is obtained
directly from the company but which might not automatically be brought to the attention
of shareholders (for example, employee reports and press releases); and such data as one
AAAJ discovers, in effect, by chance. The database distinguishes between self-defined annual
reports, reviews of the year, social and environmental reports, employee and employment
8,2 reports and “other”. These distinctions proved to be practically useful in that most of what
was received could be analysed under these heads. However, they are categories which
were not driven by any explicit theoretical position and so interpretation is difficult. This
is touched on again in the data analysis in Gray et al. (1995).
10. The “when” and “who” are dealt with in the section on the sample below.
90 11. Verbal and other communications raise somewhat different problems (see, for example,
Kassarjian (1977), Krippendorf (1980, Peterson (1991)).
12. There is one problem, however, which is attendant on the measurement of pages and that
is the use of different sizes of article, different margins and different typefaces. It is difficult
to come to any straightforward conclusion about how important this might be. Therefore,
data which permit an assessment of these factors have been collected. These have been
examined briefly as part of the data analysis (see Gray et al., 1995) but little effect is
obvious and it is far from clear that the small amount of extra information gained is worth
the extra effort involved – or, indeed, makes any significant difference to the interpretation.
13. It was found to be simpler, more reliable and more convenient to record the data manually
and then enter them into the computer. For example, the manual record prevented one from
forgetting what had or had not been included already. Advantages such as these forced the
research to adopt the manual stage. There was little increase in research time as a result
but there was an increase in the possibility of data transference risk. The data were
checked as entered into the computer. A check towards the end of the pilot study of a
haphazard sample of 30 manual sheets produced no differences.
14. This thus permitted any number of records per company per year and enabled, where
necessary, the researcher to record an analysis of several documents produced by the
company in any one year.
15. By following the Ernst and Ernst and the Guthrie/Mathews/Parker line a high degree of
shared meaning was assured. However, further attempts were made to confirm or reject
these meanings. This was done with varying degrees of formality ranging from general
discussion with colleagues from various countries and from both CSR and elsewhere in the
discipline; presenting a series of working articles (precursors to this article) at seminars
and conferences wherever possible; and wide distribution of a much earlier version of this
article. This produced a number of suggestions which became inputs to the definition
process (see below and Appendix 4) – some of which are reflected in the earlier pilot study
and some of which are added for the continuing sample.
16. A major element of this disagreement, for example, was how to treat the blank parts of a
page – the margins and so forth. Agreement was ultimately reached to count blank parts
of a page as part of the communication. This possibly bizarre conclusion was reached
because first, layout of a page is part of its communicative power; second, these areas could
have been used for other forms of communication – that is, a margin by a piece of CSR has
an opportunity cost that is incurred because of the CSR; and, third, the written and
pictorial part of a page could be considered to be the page itself and the blank areas
irrelevant, although this would have meant collecting page-size data. An approximation of
this was done but to no apparent effect.
17. The Times 1000 is a standard UK reference text. It is published annually by Times Books
and contains, inter alia, a listing and ranking of the UK’s largest 1,000 companies by
turnover.
18. The period from 1979 was chosen on the hypothesis that the Thatcher years in the UK
would lead to a significant change in organization-society relationships and, thus, in the
subjects of organizational disclosure.
19. The results of Hall and Jones (1991) seem to be out of line with the other cited studies and
certainly produce detailed conclusions which are not compatible with this sample. Their
general conclusions about trends in CSR practice, however, are broadly compatible.
 20. It should be noted that a sample member is selected from a particular year of The Times Constructing a
1000. However, not all companies in that 1,000 may have comparable year ends. Analysis
is by calendar year in which the accounting year falls, while the sample is chosen by the database of CSR
year in which it appears in The Times 1000. Gaps which then emerge are subsequently
filled. Thus, the same 100 companies are not necessarily analysed for each year.
21. Only when social and environmental accounting research is the major industry that share-
price research has become might the database become more than a cottage industry.
However, it is highly unlikely that those associated with social and environmental 91
accounting would necessarily approve of either growth or any movement away from a
cottage industry approach to data collection!

References
Abbott, W.F. and Monsen, R.J. (1979), “On the measurement of corporate social responsibility:
self-reported disclosures as a method of measuring corporate social involvement”, Academy
of Management Journal, Vol. 22 No. 3, pp. 501-15.
Accounting Standards Committee (1975), The Corporate Report, Institute of Chartered
Accountants of England and Wales, London.
Beresford, D.R. and Cowen, S.S. (1979), “Surveying social responsibility disclosure in annual
reports”, Business, Vol. 29 No. 2, pp. 15-20.
Bouwman, M.J. (1985), “The use of protocol analysis in accounting”, Accounting and Finance,
May, pp. 61-85.
Bowman, E.H. and Haire, M. (1975), “A strategic posture towards corporate social responsibility”,
California Management Review, Winter, pp. 49-58.
Burchell, S., Clubb, C. and Hopwood, A. (1985), “Accounting in its social context: towards a
history of value added in the United Kingdom”, Accounting, Organizations and Society, Vol. 10
No. 4, pp. 381-413.
Burrell, G. and Morgan, G. (1979), Sociological Paradigms and Organizational Analysis,
Heinemann, London.
Cowen, S.S., Ferreri, L.B. and Parker, L.D. (1987), “The impact of corporate characteristics on
social responsibility disclosure: a typology and frequency-based analysis”, Accounting,
Organizations and Society, Vol. 12 No. 2, pp. 111-22.
Ernst and Ernst (1976 et seq.), Social Responsibility Disclosure, Ernst and Ernst, Cleveland, OH.
Gray, R.H., Kouhy, R. and Lavers, S. (1995), “Corporate social and environmental reporting: a
review of the literature and a longitudinal study of UK disclosure”, Accounting, Auditing &
Accountability Journal, Vol. 8 No. 2, pp. 47-77.
Gray, R.H., Owen, D.L. and Maunders, K.T. (1987), Corporate Social Reporting: Accounting &
Accountability, Prentice-Hall, Hemel Hempstead.
Guthrie, J.E. and Mathews, M.R. (1985), “Corporate social accounting in Australasia”, Research in
Corporate Social Performance and Policy, Vol. 7, pp. 251-77.
Guthrie, J.E. and Parker, L.D. (1989), “Corporate social reporting: a rebuttal of legitimacy theory”,
Accounting and Business Research, Vol. 9 No. 76, pp. 343-52.
Guthrie, J.E. and Parker, L.D. (1990), “Corporate social disclosure practice: a comparative
international analysis”, Advances in Public Interest Accounting, Vol. 3, pp. 159-76.
Hall, C. and Jones, M. (1991), “Social responsibility accounting: myth or reality?”, Management
Accounting, March, pp. 34-40.
Harte, G. and Owen, D.L. (1991), “Environmental disclosure in the annual reports of British com-
panies: a research note”, Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Vol. 4 No. 3, pp. 51-61.
Harte, G. and Owen, D.L. (1992), “Current trends in the reporting of green issues in the annual
reports of UK companies”, in Owen, D.L. (Ed.), Green Reporting: The Challenge of the Nineties,
Chapman & Hall, London, pp. 166-200.
Hines, R.D. (1988), “Financial accounting: in communicating reality, we construct reality”,
Accounting, Organizations and Society, Vol. 13 No. 3, pp. 251-61.
AAAJ Holsti, O.R. (1969), Content Analysis for the Social Sciences and Humanities, Addison-Wesley,
London.
8,2 Kassarjian, H.H. (1977), “Content analysis in consumer research”, Journal of Consumer Research,
Vol. 4 No. 1, pp. 8-18.
Kirkman, P. and Hope, C. (1992), Environmental Disclosure in UK Company Annual Reports,
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Krippendorf, K. (1980), Content Analysis: An Introduction to its Methodology, Sage, New York, NY.
92 Lehman, C. (1992), Accounting’s Changing Roles in Social Conflict, Paul Chapman, London.
Mathews, M.R. (1993), Socially Responsible Accounting, Chapman & Hall, London.
Maunders, K.T. (1981), “Social reporting and the employment report”, in Tonkin D.J. and Skerratt,
L.C.L. (Eds), Financial Reporting 1981-1982, London, pp. 217-27.
Maunders, K.T. (1982), “Social reporting and the employment report”, in Tonkin D.J. and Skerratt,
L.C.L. (Eds), Financial Reporting 1982-1983, London, pp. 178-87.
Maxwell, S.R. and Mason, A.K. (1976), Social Responsibility and Canada’s Largest Corporations,
ICRA Occasional Paper No. 9, International Centre for Research in Accounting, University of
Lancaster.
Morgan, G. (1983), “Social science and accounting research: a commentary on Tomkins and
Groves”, Accounting, Organizations and Society, Vol. 8 No. 4, pp. 385-8.
Morgan, G. (1986), Images of Organization, Sage, London.
Morgan, G. (1988), “Accounting as reality construction: toward a new epistemology for
accounting practice”, Accounting, Organizations and Society, Vol. 13 No. 5, pp. 477-85.
Neimark, M.D. (1983), “Using content analysis in historical research”, Accounting Historian’s
Notebook, pp. 1, 19-23.
Neimark, M.D. (1992), The Hidden Dimensions of Annual Reports, Paul Chapman, London.
Owen, D., Gray, R. and Maunders, K. (1987), “Researching the information content of social
responsibility disclosure: a comment”, British Accounting Review, Vol. 19 No. 2, pp. 169-76.
Parker, L.D. (1986), “Polemical themes in social accounting: a scenario for standard setting”,
Advances in Public Interest Accounting, Vol. 1, pp. 67-93.
Peterson, R.T. (1991), “Physical environment television advertisement themes: 1979 and 1989”,
Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 10 No. 3, pp. 221-8.
Roberts, C.B. (1990), International Trends in Social and Employee Reporting, Occasional Research
Paper No. 6, Chartered Association of Certified Accountants, London.
Roberts, C.B. (1991), “Environmental disclosures: a note on reporting practices in Europe”,
Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Vol. 4 No. 3, pp. 62-71.
Silverman, D. (1993), Interpreting Qualitative Data: Methods for Analysing Talk, Text and
Interaction, Sage, London.
Sudarsanam, P.S. (1984), “How homogeneous are the London Stock Exchange industry groups?”,
The Investment Analyst, Vol. 72, April, pp. 24-31.
Tinker, A.M., Lehman, C. and Neimark M. (1991), “Corporate social reporting: falling down the hole
in the middle of the road”, Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Vol. 4 No. 1, pp. 28-54.
Tonkin, D.J. and Skerratt, L.C.L. (1991), Financial Reporting 1990-91: A Survey of UK Reporting
Practice, ICAEW, London.
Tonkin, D.J. and Skerratt, L.C.L. (1992), Financial Reporting 1991-92: A Survey of UK Reporting
Practice, ICAEW, London.
Woodward, D. (1993), “Corporate social responsibility”, unpublished MBA dissertation, Open
University.
Zeghal, D. and Ahmed, S.A. (1990), “Comparison of social responsibility information disclosure
media used by Canadian firms”, Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Vol. 3 No. 1,
pp. 38-53.
Appendix 1 Constructing a
Where Reporting database of CSR
Area of Information to to be restricted Originated Currently Activated
disclosure be disclosed disclosed to in extant in

Political and Amount donated (£) Directors’ Amount Company Company y/e 1968
charitable showing charity and report >£200 Act 1967 Act 1985 93
donations political amounts (Sec.19) (Sched 7;
separate. Political Sec. 3-5)
donees to be specified
Information Average numbers Directors’ >100 Company Company 1968
about employed by categoryreport employees Act 1967 Act (Sched 10;
employees and wages (includingor (Sec.18) Para 5-8)
pension and social notes to (Sched 4;
security costs) financial Para 56)
statements
Numerical analysis of Notes to Company Company 1968
employees earning financial Act 1967 Act 1985
> £30,000 statements (Sec.8) (Sched 5;
(> £10,000) Para 35)
Average number Notes to DoT/OECD ⇒ 1976
employed by financial Guideline ⇒
geographic area statements 1976 ⇒
Information Information for To trade Industrial Employment 1977
to trade collective bargaining unions Relations Protection
unions on request Act 1971 Act 1975
(Sec.56) (Sec.17)
Employment Statement of publicly Annual Code of ⇒ 1978
in South available report report Conduct ⇒
Africa submitted to DoT re (Cmnd ⇒
employment practices 7233) 1978
in South Africa
Employment Policy with respect to: Directors’ >250 Statutory Company 1981
of disabled ● applications for report employees Instrument Act 1985
persons ● employment from 1980/1160 (Sched 7,
● disabled persons; Para 9)
● continuing employ-
● ment of newly
● disabled;
● training and
● promotion of
● disabled persons
Involvement Action with respect to: Directors’ >250 Company Company 1982
of employees ● informing report employees Act 1967 Act
● employees; (Sec.16) as 1985
● consulting amended (Sched 7,
● employees; by Employ- Para 11)
● encouraging ment Act
Table AI.
● involvement (e.g. 1982
Development of social
● ESOPs);
(Continued) reporting through UK
company legislation
AAAJ Where Reporting
8,2 Area of Information to to be restricted Originated Currently Activated
disclosure be disclosed disclosed to in extant in

● increasing
● employee
94 ● financial and
● economic
● awareness
Pension Particulars of Notes Company Company 1982
commitments commitments for Financial Act 1981 Act 1985
pensions, whether statements (Sched 1, (Sched 4
or not provided for Para 54) Para 50)
Health and Arrangements to Directors’ Health and Company Not yet
safety at secure the health report Safety at Act activated
work and safety of Work Act (Sched 7,
employees 1974 Para 10)
Information Financial Direct to >350 Industrial Not carried Not
to the labour statements all employees Relations forward in activated
force employees Act 1971 subsequent
(sec.57) Acts
Air and water Air pollution To local Control of Environment No public
pollution emissions and authority Pollution Protection disclosure
effluent discharges on request Act Act 1990 by
company
– but
Public
Registers
and EC
Freedom
of Info
Directive
Environmental All reasonable Financial All covered Current Not
contingent likely and/or statement by SSAP2 standards of formally
liabilities expected liabilities and true accounting activated
and provisions to be provided for or and fair practice
stated as contingent view
Environmental Various Annual ● 100 Still Not yet
activity recommendations report ● group of voluntary activated
(general) for company ● directors; in
environmental ● UNCTC; legislation
reporting ● ICAEW; or
● ICC’s elsewhere
● Charter;
● CIA’s res-
● ponsible
● care
Table AI .
Appendix 2: The 1978 Ernst & Ernst social disclosure categories Constructing a
Environment:
database of CSR
(1) pollution control;
(2) prevention or repair of environmental damage;
(3) conservation of natural resources;
(4) other environmental disclosures;
Energy: 95
(5) conservation;
(6) energy efficiency of products;
(7) other energy-related disclosures;
Fair business practices:
(8) employment of minorities;
(9) advancement of minorities;
(10) employment of women;
(11) advancement of women;
(12) employment of other special interest groups;
(13) support for minority businesses;
(14) socially responsible practices abroad;
(15) other statements on fair business practices;
Human resources:
(16) employee health and safety
(17) employee training;
(18) other human resource disclosures;
Community involvement:
(19) community activities;
(20) health and related activities;
(21) education and the arts;
(22) other community activity disclosures;
Products:
(23) safety;
(24) reducing pollution from product use;
(25) other product-related disclosures;
Other social responsibilities disclosed:
(26) other disclosures;
(27) additional information.

Appendix 3: Categories of CSR employed in the social and environmental

disclosure database project
(1) environment: in the later version of the database this category was broken down into:
● environmental policy;
● environmental audit;
● waste, packaging, pollution, etc.
● financially-related data;
AAAJ ● sustainability;
● environmental other;
8,2 (2) customers;
(3) energy;
(4) community;
(5) charitable and political donations;
96 (6) employee data;
(7) pension data;
(8) consultation with employees;
(9) employment in South Africa;
(10 employment of disabled;
(11) value added statement;
(12) health and safety;
(13) employees’ share ownership; in the later version of the database, a further category –
previously in “employee other” – was added:
● racial and sexual equality or “equal opportunities”;
(14) employee other;
(15) general other.

Appendix 4: The decision rules for the categories of social disclosure

(1) Environment (see also energy – and see below for amended categories):
● Air, water, noise, visual quality and pollution plus any attempts to identify, improve or
prevent.
● Waste and recycling including improvements in products.
● Involvement with schemes (e.g. business-in-the-environment, ACBE, etc.).
● Except in so far as it is part of the business (e.g. waste disposal or environmental
technology).

(2) Consumers:
● Product and customer safety.
● Consumer complaints.
● Specific consumer relations (over and beyond “our duty to the customer”).
● Provision for disabled, aged, etc. customers.
● Provision for difficult-to-reach customers (e.g. BT).

(3) Energy:
● Energy saving and conservation.
● Use/development/exploration of new sources, efficiency, insulation, etc.
● Except in so far as it is part of the business (e.g. oil exploration companies).

(4) Community:
● Excluding charities.
● Any reference to community and/or social involvement outside the labour force.
● Employee involvement with above if company support is apparent.
● Schools, arts, sport, sponsorship.
● YTS (or equivalent), business-in-the-community, secondment of staff.
 (5) Charity: Constructing a
● Donations in pounds sterling or in kind to registered charities within the Company Act.
● Donations ditto by/through employees, (e.g. GAYE schemes).
database of CSR
● Include references and amounts of political donations (as they fall within the same
Company Act requirement).

(6) Employee data:

● Statutory average numbers employed by category and wages (including pension and
97
social security costs).
● Statutory numerical analysis of employees > £30,000 (updated).
● Average numbers employed by geographic area.
● Statutory disclosure of directors’ emoluments.

(7) Pension data:

● Statutory particulars of commitments for pensions, whether or not provided.

(8) Consultation with employees:

● Statutory action with respect to informing employees, consulting employees,
encouraging (and engaging in) employee participation.
● Statutory increasing employee financial and economic awareness.
● Excludes profit sharing and ESOPs, etc.

(9) South Africa:

● Statement of compliance with code and/or submission to DTI.
● Any information/reference to employment in South Africa other than as part of
economic/review or employment data.

(10) Disabled employment:

● Employment of disabled persons (including retraining).
● Distinction between registered/unregistered disabled is not relevant here.

(11) Value added statement:

● Any reference to the creation and distribution of value added.
● Any statement headed value added or added value.
● Any statement with “distribution” to employees and state > shareholders.

(12) Health and safety:

● Health and safety at work.
● Toxic hazards (e.g.) to employees and the public.
● Any reference to health and safety law and/or inspectorate; COSHH.
● Information to employees, training.
● Accidents.

(13) Share ownership:

● Participation of employees in share schemes, profit sharing, ESOPs where employees
means > directors.
● Schemes/reference must be to employees (exclude if reference is to executive or
directors only).
● Loans for this purpose but not directors.
● SAYE options.
AAAJ (14) Employee other:
● Anything else on employees not covered above.
8,2 ● For example: SAYE beyond coverage in share ownership; staff turnover; thanks to
employees; length of service; racial and sexual equality (to be separated out),
pensioners; pensions beyond coverage of statutory material; employee
trends/statistics by sex, age for more than two years and more than statutory;
statement of employment policy(ies), redundancy; changes in salaries/wages.
98
(15) General other:
● Anything else.
● For example: corporate objectives, mission statement; statement of social responsibility;
code of practice on behaviour beyond South Africa but including TNCs; ethics; political
statements (need/approval/disapproval of government policy, control of unions), value
of TNCs/companies – misunderstood; value of company to community, society, nation,
economy; money transactions with government/inland revenue.

(16) Voluntary total (VolTotal): environment + health and safety + value added + customer +
energy + community+ employee other + general other.

(17) Mandatory total (ManTotal): charity + consultation + S. Africa + share-ownership +

disabled employees.

(18) Mandatory plus total (ManPlusTot): ManTotal + employment data + pension data (the
distinction being that the company has little discretion over these, whereas it may exercise
discretion over the ManTotal items).

(19) Total of CSD (CSRTotal),: VolTotal + ManPlusTot.

(20) Human resources disclosure: employment data+pension data+consultation+S. Africa +

disabled employees+value added+ health and safety + share ownership + employee other

(21) Environmental disclosure: environmental + energy + health and safety.

(22) Community disclosure: community + charity + general other.

(23) Customer disclosure: customers.

Amended categories
The 1988-1991 data acknowledged a change in disclosure emphasis and that, in particular,
environmental disclosure and equal opportunities disclosure required to be identified separately.
The “environmental” elements are a refinement of “environmental“ above. The “equal
opportunities” is a category previously subsumed within “employee other” above.
(1) Environmental policy:
● actual statement of policy;
● statements of formal intentions;
● general statements of “the company will, the company does” nature.

(2) Environmental audit:

● Reference to environmental review, scoping, audit, assessment including independent
attestation.
(3) Environmental – product and process-related:
● waste(s);
 ● packaging; Constructing a
● pollution;
● recycling;
database of CSR
● products and product development;
● land contamination and remediation;
(4) Environmental financially-related data:
● reference to financial/economic impact; 99
● investment and investment appraisal;
● discussion of areas with financial/economic impact;
● discussion of environmental-economic interaction;
● note: care when splitting between other categories.

(5) Sustainability:
● any mention of sustainability;
● any mention of sustainable development, UNCED, Rio, etc.

(6) Environmental other:

● landscaping;
● public amenity provision;
● environmental education (note: care with overlap with community).

(7) Equal opportunities:

● equal opportunities;
● racial equality;
● sexual equality.

Sundry measurement rules

● Proportions of page are measured by a standard A4 template divided into percentages of
a page with a standard margin.
● Margins and blank areas of pages are to be associated with words, pictures, etc. covering
the areas of disclosure.
● Actual physical size of page is to be ignored – thus a “newspaper”-style report could
produce more than one standard A4 page of disclosure. (A measure of page size was
collected but appeared to convey little information and so, probably, can be ignored.)
“News categorization”
The categorization of “news” must be subjective but it generally complies with the following:
● Neutral: statement of policy or intent within statutory minimum with no details of what
or how; statement of facts whose credit/discredit to the company is not obvious – which
are unaccompanied by editorializing.
● Good: statements beyond the minimum which include (for example) specific details where
these details have a creditable or neutral reflection on the company; any statements which
reflect credit on the company; upbeat analysis/discussion/statements.
● Bad: any statement which reflects/might reflect discredit on the company. Include, for
example, numbers made redundant (if redundancy is spoken of as a human rather than an
economic act), and any increase in accidents.
Type of disclosure
Within the original database, disclosure was classified as “monetary quantitative” if it contained
and was related primarily to financial disclosure of actual financial numbers; “other quantitative”
if it contained and was primarily related to actual numbers of a non-financial nature; and
“declarative” otherwise. In the continuing database, disclosure is further categorized as
“auditable” if, given access to the organization, it would be possible to confirm the statements.
This does not require that the data are confirmed.
AAAJ Appendix 5
8,2
Name Code (Year/OA)
Total pages
ACCPP
100
Category PP Evid Audit News Memo

Environmental policy

Environmental audit

Waste, pack, pollution,

recycle, product, land

Financial data, prov,

liab, ins, invest

Sustainability

Energy

Environment other

Consumer/product

Charity and political

Community

Employee data

Pension commit

Consult employees

South Africa

Disabled

Value added statement

Health and safety

Shares employees

Equal opportunities

Employee other
Table AII.
Structure of the General other
database records
Appendix 6: Industry sectors used in the database Constructing a
Categories taken from The Times 1000 reference book where possible:
database of CSR
(1) Food and drink: including tobacco, brewers, meat, distillers, wine, food manufacturing.
(2) Textiles: including cloth, wool, footwear.
(3) Mechanical and general engineering: including machine tools, motor vehicles,
components, industrial plant.
(4) Electronic and electrical engineering: including switchgear, information technology, 101
communications, computers, optics.
(5) Processing: including building materials, packaging, paper, metallurgy, printing.
(6) Chemicals: including gases, coal products, oil products, paint manufacturing, plastics,
detergents.
(7) Financial and other services: including insurance, publishing, newspapers, media,
property, leasing, transport, rental, distribution, shipping, storage.
(8) Retail and leisure: including merchanting, hotels, catering, wholesale, commodity broking,
motor distribution, general trading.
(9) Pharmaceuticals: including animal products,veterinary products, nutritional products,
toiletries, hospital and laboratory supplies.
(10) General manufacturing: including household, toys and games, office equipment,
glassware, miscellaneous industrial and mixed manufacturing (i.e. overlap of 3,4,5).
(11) Contracting: including building, civil engineering, construction.
(12) Extractive: including mining, exploration, quarrying.
(13) Aerospace and defence.
(14) Too general groups.
(15) Other: including agriculture, fisheries, animal feedstuffs, timber-growing and forestry.