Given the growing interest in the field of Corporate Social Responsibility Disclosure (CSRD), especially in developing countries, this thesis adopts neo-institutional theory to investigate the extent and types of CSRD practices and factors influencing its adoption in oil and gas companies operating in Libya. Two methods of data collection were used: namely, semi-structured interviews and annual reports. The semi-structured interviews were conducted first with 14 oil and gas firms’ managers working in Libya, to identify the factors influencing CSRD adoption, and second with 6 external actors to confirm or reject such claims. The second method involved a collection of 106 annual reports for the period 2009-2013, to first identify the extent and types of CSRD practices, and second to proceed with a regression test to assess the relationship between CSRD determinants and the extent of CSRD practices. The findings from the qualitative analysis show that managers perceive a diversity of coercive, mimetic and normative pressures interplay to influence CSRD in the Libyan context. Particularly, the adoption of CSRD is influenced by the state through its governance body - the National Oil Corporation (NOC), foreign business partners, other foreign-owned companies’ behaviour, the need to uphold firms’ reputation, and pressures to meet societal expectations. Other determinants identified include government ownership, parent company factors, board size, board meeting, firm size, age, presence of CSR committee, and profitability. Furthermore, the absence of clear legal requirements, a shortage of knowledge and awareness, the absence of civil society organisations, the absence of the Environmental General Authority’s (EGA) role, and a lack of motivation from the government were found to act as major impediments to CSRD development. The findings obtained from the quantitative analysis show that the level of CSRD is low when compared with Western countries, but in relative terms, the most disclosed types of CSR information were related to the human resources and environment. Moreover, the findings obtained from the CSRD regression model suggest that CSRD practice is positively associated with government ownership, joint venture ownership, foreign ownership, frequency of board meetings, parent company factor, and firm size. However, CSRD has no statistically significant relationship with board size, CSR committee, and age of the company, while profitability is negatively associated with CSRD practices. These results contribute towards the literature adding to the knowledge of CSRD practices’ “implementation”, by empirically providing evidence for the context of CSRD in Libya. This is achieved by explaining how specific external and internal determinants contribute to or impede the development of CSRD practices. These findings, therefore, could be useful to corporate regulators and policy makers in developing a more focussed agenda of CSRD activity, when considering regulations for disclosure.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:700597 |
| Date | January 2016 |
| Creators | Alshbili, Ibrahem Alshref M. |
| Contributors | Beddewela, Eshani ; Aluko, Olu |
| Publisher | University of Huddersfield |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/id/eprint/30253/ |
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