Corporate Social Disclosure: a Longitudinal Comparative Study Between France and Canada

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to compare the social information (social, environmental and governance) published by French and Canadian companies. To ensure this comparison, a longitudinal quantitative study is conducted using an institutional analysis. Based on a comparative analysis and a sample
including annual data for 79 French companies and 224 Canadian companies (2,379 firm-year observations) we find that: (1) the levels of corporate social disclosure have constantly evolved in France and Canada during the study period (2004 - 2014) and thus differs between French and
Canadian companies over time and on the three aspects: environmental, social and governance, (2) the level of disclosure of social information, which includes the three dimensions, is higher in France than in Canada; (3) by assessing each dimension separately, the results indicate that the
level of social and environmental disclosure is higher in France than in Canada, while in terms of governance, the situation is opposite.