A BENCHMARKING ANALYSIS OF CORPORATE SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL REPORTING OF MALAYSIAN TELECOMMUNICATION SERVICE PROVIDERS

Abstract

The main purpose of this paper is to explore corporate social and environmental reporting (CSER) practices among Malaysian telecommunication companies. Using benchmarking analysis, the paper attempts to identify the current status of the CSER practices in comparison with an identified benchmark company. The empirical examination encompasses a sample that includes the annual reports of four telecommunication companies from 2013 to 2017. A content analysis approach has been applied to these annual reports. The findings show that categories of “corporate governance” and “community” received the highest amount of disclosure over the period of five years, while the least amount of disclosure was found in the “employee relation” category. It is recommended that low-level disclosures on employee relation be given more prominence by policymakers, management, and other relevant stakeholders. Such information is seen as being of critical importance to value enhancement, as uncertainty about environmental impacts of organizations is thought to have an increasing effect on financial performance. If best practice information