CSR disclosure and decision usefulness - are firms aware of what information users find as useful? A study investigating the dichotomy in perceptions between reporters and users

Sammanfattning: This thesis investigates the identified research gap concerning the area of sell-side equity analysts' informational needs and preferences, relating to the relevance and usefulness of the informational value in CSR disclosure. An exploratory, qualitative study has been made to investigate the dichotomy in perceptions between reporters and users. The analysis is made by using interview data that has been gathered from 15 sell-side equity analysts. Based on our empirics, we identified possibilities of increasing the usefulness of CSR disclosure by finding what information equity analysts consider as important and necessary. Our empirical findings suggest that CSR-disclosures considered material and useful were primarily related to governance, emissions, reputational, and social risks. All of which were emphasized considering economic priorities and in most of the cases, from a risk-management point of view. Moreover, we observed that less experienced analysts are less likely to incorporate CSR related information due to the lack of knowledge and associated difficulties for how to incorporate it, in comparison to more senior analysts who expressed a more positive view towards incorporating of information.