Effect of national cultural values on corporate environmental disclosures: A comparative study

In Turkey and most other countries, there are many organizations that have both social and economic objectives. Such organizations may include nonprofit organizations, co-operatives, social enterprises, public sector organizations, and other for profit with environmental and social obligations. At the same time the countries around the world became collectively dealing with environmental crises by formulating and enacting rules and regulations to sustain the environment. This dissertation involves a cross-cultural comparison of the effect of national cultural values (as suggested by Hofstede, 1980, Hofstede, 2001, and Hofstede et al., 2010) on corporate environmental disclosure (CED) in the annual reports. The sample consists of 655 large companies from 20 countries which are selected from 10 different cultural areas, these areas are based on the international classification of accounting systems as proposed by Gray (1988). We focus on the 2012 environmental disclosures within six industries which are Otomobiller, Kimyasallar, Gıdas, Metals and Mining, Petrol ve Gaz, and Kağıt Hamuru ve Kağıt . In this dissertation, we utilized the content analysis technique which is a research method for making applicable and valid inferences from data, to operationalize the environmental disclosure variables. The results indicate that two of Hofstede's national cultural dimensions are linked to a higher degree of corporate environmental disclosure. In particular, a nation's high degree of individualism and high degree of indulgence are both related to high level of corporate environmental disclosure. While one of Hofstede's national cultural dimensions is linked to a low degree of corporate environmental disclosure. The nation's high degree of power distance is related to low degree of corporate environmental disclosure. The control variables (regions, industries and firm size) are significantly related to corporate environmental disclosure. Keywords Environment disclosure, National cultural values, Hofstede's cultural dimensions, Annual reports, Environmental Reporting