The influence of national culture on corporate social responsibility reporting

Abstract

This thesis looks at the relationship between national culture and CSR reporting and the relationship between national culture and companies singing the UN Global Compact. The hypotheses that are developed are based on the five cultural dimensions of Hofstede. Per cultural dimensions is looked at the relationship with CSR reporting and the relationship with companies singing the UN Global Compact. This makes ten hypotheses in total. The data used for this thesis is from the Refinitiv Eikon database and the Hofstede cultural dimension indexes. To evaluate the hypotheses, a binary logistic regression is conducted. The dimension power distance has a negative relationship with CSR reporting, while the dimensions individualism and uncertainty avoidance have a positive relation with CSR reporting. The relationship between masculinity and CSR reporting turned out to be nonsignificant. The relationship between national culture and companies singing the UN Global Compact turned out to be nonsignificant and could not be proven with this thesis.