Does National Culture Influence Corporate ESG Disclosures? Evidence from Cross-Country Study

The present study empirically investigates the influence of country-level informal institutions on corporate ESG disclosures. We use country-level culture as the measure of informal institution. The study reveals that, more than economic factors, country-level culture better explains the wide variations of corporate ESG disclosure practices across countries. We use larger sample than the earlier studies and apply hierarchical linear modelling (HLM) technique for estimation. The study reports significant association between different measures of national culture, as proposed by Hofstede, and corporate ESG disclosures. Further, we also report the direct impact as well as the moderating role of firm characteristics on firms’ disclosure decisions. We find that firm size is an important factor along with Tobin’s Q that sometimes strengthens or weakens the overall effects of different cultural dimensions on ESG disclosures. Adoption of Williamson’s framework of ‘New Institutional Economics’ in the context of corporate ESG behaviour is a novel contribution to the existing body of knowledge.