Australian Social Responsibility Disclosure: Some Insights Into Contemporary Measurement

Abstract: Measurement of selected social responsibility disclosure items contained in the annual reports of 50 selected Australian corporations over the period 1969 to 1978 is undertaken. The results presented in this paper indicate that disclosure of selected social responsibility items has increased over the period 1969 to 1978. Larger corporations tend to disclose more environmental, energy and products information than their smaller counterparts. Corporations classified in the primary and secondary industries tend to disclose more environmental and energy information than corporations engaged in tertiary industries whilst the latter were found to disclose more community involvement information than the former.