Comparison of corporate social disclosures by French companies on their web sites and in their annual reports

This papers deals with coporate social disclosure made by French companies through their websitesand their annual reports.First, it discusses the suitability of an evaluation ofthe scope of corporate social disclosure based on the sole annual report. Then, it. seeks to extend previous research of corporate social disclosures by examining the relationship between a number of corporatecharacteristics and social responsibility disclosures.In addition, this study considers the social and environmental disclosures made by 49 French firms in their annual reports and through their web sites. Itcompares and contrasts corporate social disclosures between the two media with respect to the amountand quality of information released, and the themesof disclosure. In testing the relationship betweencorporate profitability, the nature of the industry, the size and the level of firms' social disclosures, thisstudy underlines the importance of the political dimensions in the corporate social disclosure process.