Motivations for an organisation
within a developing country
to report social responsibility
information
Evidence from Bangladesh
Muhammad Azizul Islam and Craig Deegan
School of Accounting and Law, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia
Abstract
Purpose – The aim of the paper is to describe and explain, using a combination of interviews and
content analysis, the social and environmental reporting practices of a major garment export
organisation within a developing country.
Design/methodology/approach – Senior executives from a major organisation in Bangladesh are
interviewed to determine the pressures being exerted on them in terms of their social and
environmental performance. The perceptions of pressures are then used to explain – via content
analysis – changing social and environmental disclosure practices.
Findings – The results show that particular stakeholder groups have, since the early 1990s, placed
pressure on the Bangladeshi clothing industry in terms of its social performance. This pressure, which
is also directly related to the expectations of the global community, in turn drives the industry’s social
policies and related disclosure practices.
Research limitations/implications – The findings show that, within the context of a developing
country, unless we consider the managers’ perceptions about the social and environmental
expectations being imposed upon them by powerful stakeholder groups then we will be unable to
understand organisational disclosure practices.
Originality/value – This paper is the first known paper to interview managers from a
large organisation in a developing country about changing stakeholder expectations and
then link these changing expectations to annual report disclosures across an extended period of
analysis.
Keywords Corporate social responsibility, Stakeholders, Developing countries, Annual reports,
Bangladesh
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Across the last two decades there has been a great deal of research into the social
and environmental reporting practices of organisations operating in developed
countries (see Deegan, 2002, for an overview of some of the research). However,
whilst there is a deal of research that explores social and environmental reporting
practices in developed countries, there is relatively limited research on the social and
environmental reporting practices of organisations operating within developing
countries, or the external pressures being exerted on organisations within developing
countries in relation to their social and environmental performance and related
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/0951-3574.htm
AAAJ
21,6
850
Received 7 June 2007
Revised 26 August 2007
Accepted 20 November 2007
Accounting, Auditing &
Accountability Journal
Vol. 21 No. 6, 2008
pp. 850-874
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0951-3574
DOI 10.1108/09513570810893272