Revisiting Corporate Social Disclosure in Japan

A corporation has a responsibility to contribute toward the economic development of society by creating added value and generating employment through fair competition; it should also make its existence useful to society at large. A corporation is expected to respect human rights, comply with relevant laws and regulations, observe the spirit of international rules, discharge social responsibility with a strong sense of ethical values and contribute toward sustainable development of society by acting in line with CSR principles (METI, 2012). Similarly, the disclosure of such corporate activities becomes an important part of corporate accountability (Gray et al., 1996; Deegan & Unerman, 2011). Although the origin of CSR disclosure is largely linked with the dawn of the modern corporation (Buhr, 2007), more systematic and standardized systems of CSR reporting only emerged in practice in the late 1980s and early 1990s (World Bank, 2004: 11). Over the last two decades, there has been substantial improvement in the number of companies around the world publishing such kind of non-financial reports, although these remain largely voluntary (KPMG, 2008, 2011). Japan is one of the leading countries in the world in CSR reporting (MOE & JICPA, 2007). According to the KPMG International Survey of Corporate Responsibility Reporting 2011, 99% of Japanese companies report on their impacts on society and environment.