Exploring the importance of social responsibility disclosure for human resources

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the social responsibility disclosure (SRD) on the internet by Portuguese companies which are engaged in processes of obtaining or enhancing a good social responsibility reputation and are confident of having a good social performance pertaining to the human resources area – the best companies to work for (BCWF).Design/methodology/approach – A matched pair approach is used to address the empirical question of whether the SRD on the internet of the BCWF differs from that of a benchmark group of companies selected by matching industry and size. Using a resource‐based perspective (RBP) the hypothesis that the BCWF disclose more social responsibility information is analysed.Findings – Results suggest that BCWF do disclose more items of social responsibility information than control companies, which allows thinking that companies which want to have a good social responsibility reputation and think that their social performance relating to their employees is good...