Edith Cowan University, Research Online, Perth, Western Australia
Abstract
In recent years, accounting researchers have turned their attention to media agenda setting theory in addition to legitimacy theory as the theoretical framework for researching voluntary social disclosure in the annual report of a company. Their research has tended to show a significant relationship between the extent and change in the number of press media social reports and the extent and level of social disclosure in the annual report of a company based on the same classification of Social items. They have also explored the existence of a time lag between the number of press media reports and disclosure in the annual report. A critical review of this literature suggested a number of gaps, some of which were acknowledged, present in this research. The purpose of this study is to replicate, refine and/or extend this recent research in a number of important directions
