Corporate Social Reporting (CSR) in emerging economies: a review and future direction

Purpose – Previous reviews of Corporate Social Reporting (CSR) literature have tended to focus on developed economies. The aim of this study is to extend reviews of CSR literature to emerging economies.
Design/methodology/approach – A desk-based research method, using a classification framework of three categories.
Findings – Most CSR studies in emerging economies have concentrated on the Asia-Pacific and African regions and are descriptive in nature, used content analysis methods and measured the extent and volume of disclosures contained within the annual reports. Such studies provide indirect explanation of the reasons behind CSR adoption, but of late, a handful of studies have started to probe managerial motivations behind CSR directly through in-depth interviews finding that CSR agendas in emerging economies are largely driven by external forces, namely pressures from parent companies, international market and international agencies.
Originality/value – This is the first review and analysis of CSR studies from the emerging economy perspective. Following this analysis, the authors have identified some important future research questions.