Thesis Structure

As presented at Figure 1.2, the chapter is divided into seven chapters. A brief content of each chapter is provided as follows:

Chapter One begins with background information on the concepts of CSR and CSRD, followed by a brief discussion of relevant literature. Based on the review of previous literature, empirical and theoretical gaps are identified, from which motivations for conducting this research are presented. The chapter continues with the scope of this study, research aims, research questions and research objectives. A brief context of Southeast Asia and each of the six examined countries is also provided. The chapter concludes with a summary of the research findings and contributions as well as the presentation of the thesis’s structure.

Chapter Two provides definitions of CSR reporting and CSRD. The scope and categories of CSRD (environmental disclosure, human resources disclosure, consumers and products disclosure and community involvement disclosure) form a detailed discussion. The chapter then presents empirical studies regarding determinants of CSRD, from which the gaps and limitations are identified. Additionally, the chapter provides essential information to develop CSRD instrument and locate this research within contemporary literature.

Chapter Three focuses on the discussion of theoretical framework, a review of literature on the impact of corporate governance and institutional factors on CSRD and hypotheses development. The chapter starts with a session on theoretical framework in which relevant theories are identified and discussed in relation to CSR and CSRD studies then moves to justify the choice of multi- theoretical framework, a combination of legitimacy theory, stakeholder theory, institutional theory and agency theory. Based on the discussion of theoretical framework, relevant internal determinants (corporate governance) and external determinants (institutional factors) are

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identified, and relevant hypotheses are developed. The hypotheses development session, hence, is divided into two main sub-sections. The first sub-section focuses on the impact of corporate governance mechanisms on CSRD. The sub-section begins with a brief discussion on corporate governance definition, followed by an overview of corporate governance development and legal frameworks, together with comparisons of key practices across the six countries. The sub-section then provides a literature review on the relationship between corporate governance and CSRD. Six relevant corporate governance practices (board size, board independence, board gender diversity, CEO duality, block ownership and the presence of CSR committee) on CSRD are formed on the discussion of relevant literature and theories. In the second sub-section, the impact of institutional environment on CSRD is the main focus. The second sub-section starts with an overview of CSR and CSRD development across the six countries, followed by a discussion of the relationship between institutional environment and CSRD to highlight the need for studies looking at the role of institutional environment in shaping firms’ CSRD practice. Based on the Scott’s framework, six institutional factors, including legal origin, mandatory disclosure, uncertainty avoidance, masculinity, GRI standard and CSR-related associations, are identified to examine the effect of three institutional pillar, regulative, cultural-cognitive and normative on CSRD. Hypotheses on the effect of these institutional factors on CSRD are then developed based on the theoretical framework and previous studies.

Chapter Four summarises the research methodology. The chapter begins with a discussion on research philosophy. Justification for using quantitative research method and content analysis data collection is provided. The chapter, then, continues with the discussion of research population, sampling type and an overview of the study’s subjects. Next, the measurements of the dependent, independent and control variables are presented with the support of previous literature. Finally, the types of data analysis techniques are mentioned based on the nature of each research question.

Chapter Five is the first chapter of data analysis. The chapter provides descriptive statistics for all the dependent, independent and control variables. The statistics of the dependent variable, CSRDI are first presented and then discussed across three levels of analysis, country level, industry level and category level. Next, the descriptive statistics of the independent variables are divided into two main sub-sections for internal determinants (corporate governance variables) and external determinants (institutional variables), followed up by a discussion of these statistics across the six

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countries based on previous literature and the study context. Finally, the descriptive statistics of all the control variables are addressed.

Chapter Six (Part 1) aims to provide an answer for the research question regarding whether the levels of CSRD are different across the examined countries using the ANOVA data analysis technique. The chapter starts with testing ANOVA’s assumptions (absence of outliers, normality of sampling distribution of means, homoscedasticity and independence of errors). As all the assumptions are not seriously violated, ANOVA analysis and the Kruskal-Wallis test are performed with the conclusion that there is a significant difference between CSRD levels across the six countries. The presentation of post-hoc tests follows to identify the specific groups of countries with the significant difference. The chapter concludes with a brief discussion of the findings.

Chapter Six (Part 2) presents the empirical findings regarding the impact of corporate governance practices on CSRD. The chapter starts with the assumptions testing for OLS regression model (1) which includes CSRDI (the dependent variable), corporate governance variables (the independent variables) and control variables. Upon the satisfaction of all the assumptions, the empirical results of the regression model are presented to examine the impact of each independent and control variables on CSRD. The section then continues with the use of alternative models to inspect the level of robustness and sensitivity of the results. The results from the original model and sensitivity analyses all confirm the significant impact of board size, board gender diversity, block ownership and the presence of CSR committee on CSRD. Finally, a review and discussion of the results in relation to previous studies will be provided at the end of the section.

Chapter Six (Part 3) presents the empirical findings regarding the effect of institutional factors on CSRD. Firstly, similar with the previous section, OLS assumptions are examined, followed by the performance of OLS regression model to achieve the empirical results for both independent and control variables. The robustness and sensitivity of the results are then examined by the use of several alternative model. The results from the original model and sensitivity analyses provide consistent findings with the four significant independent variables, mandatory reporting, uncertainty avoidance, masculinity and GRI reporting standard. Finally, a discussion of empirical findings based on previous studies concludes the chapter.

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Chapter Seven is the concluding chapter of the thesis. The chapter firstly re-addresses the research questions and discusses how the findings in this study answer each of these. The chapter then provides arguments for theoretical, empirical and practical contributions of the research. The limitations of the study are also addressed. The chapter concludes with recommendations for future research in the field of CSRD determinants.