The association between Corporate Governance and Corporate Social Responsibility disclosure-evidence from Gulf Cooperation Council countries

This study investigates the possible association between Corporate Governance (CG) and disclosure of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) by listed companies in the Gulf Cooperation Council1 (GCC) countries. An un-weighted CSR disclosure index including 41 information items has been developed to gather suitable information from corporate annual reports of 246 sampled listed companies from the six GCC countries covering the 2016 financial period. Five independent variables represent CG factors (board size, non-executive directors, role duality, female directors and size of the audit committee) in addition to three company characteristics (firm size, profitability and type of industry) are control variables in six regression models. Findings of regression models reveal that only board size and non-executive directors are determinants of CSR disclosure; conversely, no significant association is found between CSR disclosure and the other three CG variables. © 2018, Allied Academies.