Digital Corporate Social Responsibility Reporting in The Water Industry

Abstract

Companies in the water industry present to their shareholders their digital corporate social responsibility agendas and their social and environmental commitments on their websites. The purpose of this research is to assess the digital corporate social responsibility of Portuguese companies in the water industry. This research makes theoretical and practical contributions to the existing literature by examining the corporate social responsibility disclosure in a specific type of industry that is rarely studied and is in one of the smallest Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries, thereby expanding previous research in this field. The research also examines factors that affect the digital status of the online disclosure. The authors empirically analyse the corporate social responsibility information published on the websites of the Portuguese companies operating in the bottled water industry. The data was collected based on the Global Reporting Initiative standards which detail the level of disclosure in this industry and highlight areas of underreporting. The results reveal the variables companies’ size, number of employees and turnover influence the level of disclosure of Portuguese companies in water industry.