2.4.2 enhancing corporate reputation
several recent studies the impact of csr reporting on perceptions of corporate reputation.for example,toms (2002)documents differences in annual report environmental disclosure for a sample of uk firms are associated with diffferences in corporate ratings of community and environmental responsibility. focusing more specifically on standalone csr reporting in the u.s.,rt al.(2010)show that the first-time issuance of a report did not appear to lead to better fortune most admired scores, on averagw.however,they did find the reputation measures increased significantly more for those companies whose reports of high quality relative to firms issuing low quality reports, where quality was based on a gri-based schme.most recently,cho.guidry,hageman,&patten(2012)use environmental reputation scores available from newsweek magazine's first ever ranking of the greenest companies inamerica and find for a sample of firms from environmrntally sensitve industries,that it was environmentaal disclosure (through both annual reports and standalone csr reports)as opposed to actual environmrmtal performance that appeared to explain differences in reputation. based on these prior studies it appears plausible that retail firms could use standalone csr retail firms could use standalone csr reporting as a means for improving their reputation in the social and environmental domains