Corporate social environmental reporting and stock prices: an analysis of listed firms in Nigeria

Auditing has a very important role in the economic life and the auditor’s report is considered as the end of accounting information system in the enterprise, where it gives full and thorough summary of information content. So, this study aims to identify the existence level and form of financial market reaction on the auditor report by defining the change impact of the external auditor’s opinion on the stock prices of service companies listed in Amman Stock Exchange (ASE) in the period 2010–2017. The study population consists of all the 37 service companies listed in ASE, in which the audit report type has changed from unqualified to qualified and vice versa, where the number of observations was 48 – 32 from unqualified to qualified and 16 from qualified to unqualified. The results showed that there is statistically significant difference of stock prices after changing the report type from unqualified to qualified, where its prices declined as a result of this change, while there weren’t any statistical differences of stock prices as a result of changing the report type from qualified to unqualified. So, companies must pay more attention to the auditor report issued on its behalf, and work at its best to keep this report unqualified.

This research evaluates the role of environmental pressure on the extend of environmental disclosure of South African banks. Although much research on corporate sustainability disclosure exists, this research is unique since little of the previous research in South Africa has given a closer examination of environmental pressure implication on the banking sector environmental disclosure. Research data were collected from secondary source, which are available from the sustainability reports of the sample of banks. Data were arranged and analyzed by means of the panel data multiple regression. Findings from the analysis showed that none of the seven environmental pressure variables had a significant relationship with banks’ environmental disclosure, which confirms assertion in the literature that banks are not much concerned with environmental issues. In conclusion, the research made some recommendations, which include that future researchers should expand the number of banks by including other financial institutions. Additionally, more research should be conducted to ascertain why external pressure is not very effective in motivating banks’ environmental disclosure as found in this study. Hence, the suggested question for further research is “what motivates bank’s environmental disclosure” and “do banks internalize or externalize their environmental costs”.

A number of studies in environmental disclosure have suggested that corporates accountable for environmental responsibility practice have lower cost of capital. However, this relationship has not yet been discovered in Vietnam. The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between environmental disclosure and the equity cost of 115 non-financial companies listed on Vietnamese stock market from 2014 to 2017 with 460 observations. This study uses the panel data regression model (the fixed effects model (FEM) and the random effects model (REM)) to assess the impact of environmental disclosure on the equity cost of listed companies in Vietnam. Content analysis method according to GRI guidelines is used to measure the level of the environmental responsibility practice and Easton’s model (2004) is used to estimate firms’ ex ante cost of equity. The research results show that the level of environmental information disclosure of listed companies in Vietnam is not high and there is a negative relationship with statistical significance between the environmental disclosure and cost of equity of listed companies in Vietnam. The findings suggest that environmental practice can be profitable and beneficial to Vietnamese listed companies. Therefore, companies in Vietnam need to change their awareness of social and environmental responsibility practices. This study also shows that the suitable model for listed companies in Vietnam is the FEM.