ABSTRACT
Famously debated in 1932 by Berle and Dodd in the Harvard Law Review (Berle 1932, Dodd 1932, Wells 2002), there has been a resurgence of interest in corporate responsibility in the last two decades and a growing expectation that companies should take action and report on their efforts to be more responsible. Perhaps more importantly, there has been a huge change in corporate practice in the area of corporate reporting. Professional services firm KPMG has monitored the number of companies publishing information on corporate responsibility since 1993. Using a sample made up of the 100 largest companies in each of 34 countries, reporting on corporate social responsibility went from 12% in 1993 to 71% in 2013 (KPMG 2011, p. 21). In the 250 largest global companies there has been an increase in corporate social responsibility reporting from 35% in 1999 to 93% in 2013 (KPMG 2011, p. 38). This is a striking change in reporting and yet little is known about whether it reflects equally striking changes within corporations.
