choices on social disclosures and earnings management. This might be a weak form of the
conclusion by, for example Gray, Kouhy and Lavers, that [financial] economic choices do not
go well with CSR choices.
A remark needs to be made about the discrepancy that exists in combining social disclosure
behaviour and management’s choices for compulsory financial accounting regulation. That
fact that Watts and Zimmerman (1978) mention social disclosures, which are predominantly
voluntary, should not mean that how management deals with accounting regulation and may
perform earnings management (Patten and Trompeter 2003), can be combined in testing the
size hypothesis.
Legitimacy Theory and Social Disclosure Studies
Since the 1980’s LEGT has been used by researchers, who where looking for explanations for
social and especially environmental disclosures (Van der Laan 2006). She mentions
limitations of LEGT, like a perceived legitimacy gap. This gap exists, because of differences
between society’s expectations and firm’s social performance, which can be assumed not to
be measured properly, nor perceived correctly. Although seen as a limited theory, due to its
under-development, it might be justified to further employ this theory in the field of social
disclosure research (Deegan 2002).
Social and political theory studies are the central focus of Gray, Kouhy and Lavers’ article
(1995). LEGT and STAKT are theories developed out of political economics. LEGT and
STAKT are overlapping perspectives in a political-economic framework8
. Gray, Kouhy and
Lavers state that it seems to be impossible to study the “economic domain”, without the
political, social and institutional framework of society. Following out of this, is that the raison
d’être for CSR (and its disclosures) must be that economical issues (financial, in case of
corporations) are not the only relevant issues in society, and thus need to be combined with
the social and political in doing business or reporting about the business.
Gray, Kouhy and Lavers seek much of their motives to plea for the use of LEGT9
in political
economy theory, partly based upon Marxist theory. In his 1970 article Friedman also uses
9
Marxist theory, but opposes against it. He came to the conclusion that CSR is something