Earnings quality and corporate social disclosure: The moderating role of State and Foreign ownership in Vietnamese listed firms

By investigating the effect of earnings quality on corporate social disclosure (CSD) in the context of Vietnam, this study tests whether firms uphold managerial opportunism based on the agency theory or social responsibility based on stakeholder theory. It also tests the moderating effect of state and foreign ownership on the relationship between earnings quality and CSD. Measuring CSD with a stakeholder-driven, three-dimensional CSD index perceived by stakeholders with the help of a survey, and the earnings quality as a standardized aggregate measure of earnings quality: accruals quality, earnings persistence, earnings predictability, and earnings smoothness, this study finds that the long-term perspective argument dominates in the relationship between earnings quality and CSD, indicating that earnings quality is positively and significantly associated with CSD. It then establishes that earnings quality causes CSD, and not vice versa. The study also finds that the increasing proportion of shares held by the government in firms weakens the relationship between earnings quality and CSD.