El impacto del sistema cultural en la transparencia corporativa

Abstract

Studies on the disclosure of corporate social information have identified business characteristics, certain internal factors and, to a lesser degree, the functional institutional aspects that define the context within which businesses interact with their stakeholders, as explanatory factors for the behaviour of entities with regard to corporate transparency. In this respect, depending on the different cultural circumstances that surround them and on the different values, rules and practices involved, local stakeholders have their own expectations regarding corporate behaviour.

This paper is focused on proving the influence of the different countries’ cultural systems on corporate transparency as far as sustainability is concerned. To this end, we have conducted an empirical analysis based on a sample of 1,598 public entities located in 20 different countries during the period 2004-2010. The methodology used for panel data is based on a Tobit dependency model.

The results obtained show that businesses located in countries with community and gender-based cultural systems tend to disclose corporate social information of a more relevant and comparable nature, since stakeholders present a higher degree of concern for common social welfare.