Russia: Corporate social disclosures

This chapter aims to expand the existing CSD literature by providing insights from current Russian CSD practice, which is believed to be an under researched area. The main objective here is to examine the extent of CSD in Russia. For this purpose content analysis of 2004 annual reports of 20 large companies which are listed on the Russian stock exchange was undertaken. The key findings show that 18 (90%) out of the 20 companies included in the study made some social and environmental disclosures. Employee related disclosures are the dominant category with 90% of companies making some form of disclosures in this category. In addition, 85% of companies made some form of environmental disclosures while only 55% of companies made ethical disclosures. According to this study, the quality of disclosure is generally poor due to lack of external verification and lack of completeness. Although it is more likely that in the future, pressures will be brought to bear on Russian companies to engage in more transparent and accountable CSD practice, still very little optimism for improvement can be expressed here. This is mainly due to lack of mandatory requirements for CSD in Russia and also to some extent due to the absence of strong NGOs and other pressure groups who can exert effective pressures on Russian companies to improve their CSD practice. © 2009 Springer Berlin Heidelberg.