Ownership Structure and Corporate Social Responsibility Disclosure: An Empirical Study on Jordanian Listed Companies

Abstract

This study aims to examine the impact of ownership type on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) reporting and spending. A sample of 61 companies listed in Amman Stock Exchange (ASE) over the period (2011-2015) was selected. We hypothesized that different types of ownership have distinct motivations toward the firm’s corporate social engagement. We identified different groups of shareholders based on ownership of at least 5% of firm’s common shares. This includes family ownership, institutional ownership, foreign ownership and government ownership. Descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, multiple regression and ANOVA were used to test the data. The results indicate a significant negative impact of family and foreign ownerships on CSR reporting and a significant negative impact of institutional ownership on CSR spending. The results also identified company size as a significant positive predictor of CSR reporting. We conclude that different ownership types have differentiated impacts on corporate social responsibility engagement.