Revised guidelines for sustainability reporting: readability and assurance

In 2015, Bursa Malaysia Berhad (BMB) issued the first edition of the Sustainability Reporting Guide (SRG 1.0) to aid Malaysian public listed companies (PLCs) in preparing corporate social responsibility reporting (CSRR). After receiving users' commentaries, BMB issued the second edition of SRG (SRG 2.0) in 2018. Given the major amendments in CSRR regulatory guidelines, there is a need to analyze the readability of CSRR in light of the new guide and to investigate the combined effects of SRG 2.0 and the assurance of CSR information on the readability of CSRR.

This study employs two readability indices to compare the readability of CSRR ex-ante and ex-post the implementation of SRG 2.0 across a sample of Malaysian PLCs that maintained their market capitalization among the top 100 companies.

The practical findings of the multivariate regression revealed that the readability of CSRR is reduced after the introduction of SRG 2.0. Meanwhile, the readability of CSRR is positively influenced by combining the effect of SRG 2.0 and CSRR assurance.

This study provides empirical evidence that the amendment to CSRR has made CSR reports more challenging to read and thus reduces their communicative value. Therefore, in their quest to mandate more CSRR information from companies, regulators might need to consider advocating that such data is reported in a readable manner. This study also shows the influential role of CSR information assurance in enhancing the readability of CSRR.

This study helps assess the readability of CSRR among Malaysian companies after the adoption of SRG 2.0. It also contributes to the literature on CSRR, as the readability of such reporting within the context of Malaysia has not been widely examined in previous studies.