Country of origin is considered to be an important determinant of the level and type of corporate social disclosure. In this paper, we use stakeholder theory to explain differ- ences in social disclosure among countries. We argue that the manner in which the role of a corporation and its stakeholders is defined in a society will affect the extent and quality of corporate social disclosure (CSD) in annual reports. Our findings based on a content analysis of 1998 and 1999 annual reports for 32 Norwegian/Danish companies and 26 US companies in the electric power generation industry, lend support to the stakeholder explanation for observed international differences in CSD