The Value of Third-party Assurance in Corporate Social Responsibility Reports

Recent years have witnessed a boost in the disclosure of corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports in Chinese companies. As the assurance of CSR reports is widely considered as an important means of promoting the validity of reports, the assurance practices are correspondingly increasing. However, whether a company, which has its CSR report assured by a third-party, is bound to take on social responsibility well, it remains to be tested. Taking Chinese companies listed on Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges, which had their CSR reports published for 2012-2014, as the samples, this paper analyzes the impacts that diverse assurors and different assurance standards exert on the companies' CSR performance, and thus, with the help of concrete evidence, conducts a research into the value of CSR reporting assurance.