International Comparisons of Social Disclosure: A Research Note Available to Purchase

This short paper is focused around two important published papers in the international accounting and finance literature. These two papers (Cowen et al., 1987; and Maheshwari, 1992) are concerned with examinations of levels of social disclosure by leading companies. Despite relying on data which is several years apart and drawn from very different reporting environments the results are remarkably similar. Examining such remarkable similarity between papers is principally motivated by the continuing debate about the extent ‐ and desirability ‐ of international comparability in corporate reporting practices. The present papers offer unusual insights into this issue. A secondary motivation arises from speculation about the need for authors to support and explain remarkable results in a climate of increased publication activity in which journal editors and referees are less able to police and monitor unusual results.