Are the financial results of selected companies listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange related to non-financial information presented in CSR reports?

Abstract

PURPOSE: The aim of the article is to try to answer the research questions: Is the content provided in CSR reports understandable to their recipients? and What is the linguistic structure of these reports? An additional question is: Are there any relationships between non-financial information and financial data in the reports of the selected entities?

APPROACH/METHODOLOGY/DESIGN: The research sample consisted of companies listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange in the period 2016-2018, which belong to two stock exchange indices: WIG-fuels and WIG-chemistry. The sample consists of 12 companies.

FINDINGS: On the basis of the conducted research, the most important conclusions were formulated: 1. CSR reports in the surveyed companies were prepared on a similar level of language difficulty, 2. The texts of CSR reports in public companies are understandable regardless of education, 3. There is a link between non-financial and financial information in terms of describing the profitability of the surveyed companies and a description of the total size of the enterprise.

PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS: The article indicates an important issue related to the attempt to answer the questions whether the description of the companies' activities is related to the financial data. This issue is extremely important from the point of view of an external recipient who uses the financial statements.

ORIGINALITY/VALUE: The results of the research and theoretical considerations contained in the article complement the existing research in accounting. Previously, such studies were not carried out in Poland with polish companies.