This introductory chapter presents an introduction of an analysis of corporate
social responsibility disclosure and financial performance from Thailand. This
chapter presents research problems related to this study, research questions,
objectives, scope of the study, research methodology, structure of the chapters and
summary of contributions and significance made by this study.
This study attempts to highlight gaps in existing Thai studies on CSR
disclosure. These gaps are: (1) Thai studies on CSR disclosure and its relationship
with financial performance research are still limited; (2) a few extant studies were
conducted in the early 2000s when CSR disclosure was not a common practice (3); a
number of studies also focused on specific industries but with an involvement using
only small sample size; (4) only a very few studies have investigated the relationship
between CSR and financial performance of Thai companies, and (5) a number of
Thai studies on CSR in the post-global-financial crisis period are fairly limited.
Based on the above, this study intends to investigate the extent of disclosure of CSR
practices amongst Thai public companies. It will also examine the interactions
between CSR disclosure levels and financial performance. This examination is
undertaken using data collected from the annual reports of firms listed on the Stock
Exchange of Thailand (SET) over the years 2009 to 2011.