5.6 Business type
Companies can be separated into two business types: family businesses and non-family
businesses. It is quite normal for Asian companies to run a business from generation to
generation with managers coming from the same family. Family businesses do not have a
tradition of disclosure since insiders (family members) often control the operating and
reporting systems (Iu & Batten, 2001). Choi (1999) speculated that the percentage of
ownership held by a family may affect the disclosure of social and environmental information.
It is likely that family businesses will make less social and environmental disclosure in their
annual reports than non-family businesses. No study has yet explored whether there is a
relationship between the amount of disclosure and business type and this study investigated
whether there is any statistical relationship between the score of TBL reporting in annual
reports and the type of business.