2019 Fiscal Year Research-status Report
Sustainability Reporting and Firm Performance in East Asian Countries
| Project/Area Number |
19K01846
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| Research Institution | Soka University |
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Principal Investigator |
Wang George 創価大学, 国際教養学部, 教授 (10769798)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2019-04-01 – 2022-03-31
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| Keywords | Sustainability Reporting / CSR Reporting / Sustainability Report / CSR Report / Firm Performance |
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| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
A sustainability report (also known as corporate social responsibility or CSR report) is an annual report published by firms to disclose its contributions to various CSR dimensions, such as economy, society, and environments. Sustainability reporting helps a firm set its goals and manage its efforts towards CSR more effectively. On the other hand, regulatory agencies can utilize a sustainability report to evaluate a firm's social performance. Literature indicates that CSR may be positively related to firm performance. This project takes one more step to investigate the relationship between sustainability reporting and firm performance. The empirical results from top 100 Japanese firms reveals that sustainability reporting is positively related to corporate performance.
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| Current Status of Research Progress |
Current Status of Research Progress
2: Research has progressed on the whole more than it was originally planned.
Reason
This project set out to survey literature, constructed econometric models, and collected data on sustainability reports and corporate financial ratios in the first grant year. In the year 2019-20, a comprehensive literature on CSR and sustainability reporting has been surveyed. In addition, sustainability reports and financial data of top Japanese firms were collected. The preliminary empirical result on the relationship between sustainability reporting and firm performance was found to be significantly positive. Therefore, the research progress for the first grant year is satisfactory.
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| Strategy for Future Research Activity |
Since the progress in the first grant year (2019-20) is going smoothly, the research plans for the second grant year (2020-21) continue as planned and the actions are as follows: 1) increase the data size of Japanese firms to top 100 or more; 2) conduct diagnosis tests (such as normality and residuals) on the data; 3) conclude the findings regarding the Japanese market; and 4) extend data collection to other East Asian countries (such as South Korea, Taiwan, or Singapore). The research plans for the third grant year (2021-22) is as follows: 1) refine the econometric models; 2) derive empirical findings; and 3) draw managerial implications.
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| Causes of Carryover |
In the first grant year (2019-20), expenses on the research data concerning sustainability reports and financial reports in East Asian countries were saved and will be purchased in the second grant year (2020-21).
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