Visual Expressions in Corporate Social Responsibility Reports: The Role of Minority Investors' Online Information Demand

ABSTRACT Corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports hold significant importance for firms to communicate with stakeholders. Previous studies have primarily emphasized the implications of verbal characteristics present in CSR reports, yet there exists a limited understanding on the distinct features of visual information in these reports. The paper integrates stakeholder salience theory and elaboration likelihood model to examine whether online information demand of minority investors in the unique online interactive platforms can prompt corporate visual expressions in their CSR reports. Additionally, we contend that the relationship between online information demand and visual expressions in CSR reports is accentuated when minority investors play a prominent role in a firm, yet attenuated when a firm provides more comprehensible and transparent information. Employing a hand‐collected dataset of 1998 observations from publicly listed Chinese firms from 2009 to 2017, our empirical findings strongly support these arguments. Taken together, this research enhances our understandings of how and when firms respond to the increased collective salience of minority investors resulting from their online information demand by disclosing more visually oriented CSR reports.