The Disclosure of Social Responsibility Information on the Websites of Non-Profit Organizations: The Case of Portuguese Mercies

Abstract

This study analyses the social responsibility (SR) information disclosed by the Portuguese mercies that are part of the Union of Portuguese Mercies and that had a website. These non-profit organizations prefer to disclose SR information on their homepage, adopting mainly a text format balanced with images. Around half of them disclose between four and ten pages of SR information, with larger mercies disclosing more SR information pages than the smaller ones. The SR information disclosed mainly refers to their activities, rather than environment and/or human resources, and few disclose codes of conduct and/or ethics. This study contributes to the literature of SR disclosure in three ways. First, it adds empirical evidence related to a different type of non-profit organization that has not been studied. Second, it provides evidence that the Portuguese mercies use their websites mainly to disclose SR information about their work area and activities. Third, it shows that the disclosure of SR information depends a lot on the characteristics of each type of non-profit organization.