| Abstract | This thesis reports to examine and to extend the literature, by obtaining a deeper understanding of the link between corporate social responsibility disclosure and organizational performance in terms of financial performance, employee commitment, and corporate reputation by using a mixed methodology underpinned by stakeholder theory. This relationship between corporate social responsibility activity and disclosure with organizational performance attracts the interest of significant stakeholder groups. Numerous prior studies have sought to examine the links between corporate social responsibility disclosure and organizational performance using quantitative methods.
Two parts were undertaken in this study. The first part of this study involved a statistical examination of the relationship between corporate social responsibility disclosure and organizational performance for Libyan companies operating in four sectors (manufacturing, banking and insurance, service, and mining). It used longitudinal data drawn from annual reports for the period 2007 to 2009 and tested for linear relationships to identify the relationship between this disclosure and financial performance. It also utilized data gathered by questionnaire to examine the relationship between this disclosure and employee commitment and corporate reputation. This study expected to find a positive relationship between corporate social responsibility disclosure categories and organizational performance. On the one hand, the longitudinal data found a positive relationship between levels of corporate social responsibility disclosure categories and organizational performance in terms of financial performance measures and corporate reputation indicators. More specifically, it revealed a positive relationship between environmental disclosure and return on assets, consumer disclosure and revenues, community involvement disclosure and return on assets, and employee disclosure and return on equity. It also found a positive relationship between consumer disclosure and employee disclosure with corporate reputation. On the other hand, the longitudinal data found no relationship between levels of corporate social responsibility disclosure and employee commitment indicators.
The second part of this study was a qualitative, interview-based inquiry about the relationship between corporate social responsibility disclosure and organizational performance in terms of financial performance, employee commitment, and corporate reputation in Libyan companies. Twenty -four financial managers and seven information managers from twenty-four companies were interviewed to obtain an understanding about this relationship and how this disclosure affects organizational performance. The findings of this study confirmed that there are a number of motivations for Libyan companies across the four sectors to disclose information about corporate social responsibility disclosure in their annual reports. The qualitative findings of this study revealed that there is a positive relationship between levels of corporate social responsibility disclosure and organizational performance. The four categories of corporate social responsibility disclosure levels have a positive effect on financial performance and corporate reputation, while only consumer disclosure and employee disclosure affects employee commitment due to stakeholders’ pressures, among other reasons. In this study, the qualitative findings confirmed that levels of corporate social responsibility disclosure are the major driver behind improving organizational performance in the selected sample. |
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