Determinants of the Level of Sustainability Reports of Mining Companies in Ghana

Abstract

The aim of the study is to examine the determinants of the level of sustainability report of mining companies in Ghana in the absence of regulatory and statutory requirements. This study hypothesises that the level of sustainability reports is correlated with the size, growth rate, and profitability, efficiency, gearing ratio, working capital, age and the complexity of the company. Fifty sustainability reports of 10 large scale mining companies in Ghana were used from the period of 2008 to 2012. With the use of content analysis the study finds that there are significant effects of corporate size, profitability (positive), gearing, working capital and complexity of MCGs (negative) on the level of Sustainability Report whilst no significant effects of growth rate, efficiency and the age of the company are found in spite of the increasing level of the report. Again, the significance of the model provides evidence that stakeholder theory is an appropriate foundation for empirical analyses of corporate sustainability reporting. The results of the empirical test have several policy implications for the practitioners in Ghana and other developing countries. The recommendations can be applied to other companies such as manufacturing, banks, investment and insurance which are also actively involved in sustainability reports. The study provides strong evidence that future research in this area can move forward with the application of stakeholder theory to empirical corporate sustainability reporting research.