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BUSN20019 Professional Project
Assignment 2
Project Report
The impact of sustainability disclosures on market
performance: evidence from 50 constituent stocks in Hong
Kong’s Hang Seng Index (HSI)
Prepared by
Student ID: xxxxx
Student Name: xxxxx
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Executive Summary
The purpose of this report is to give details on a professional project aimed at
investigating the impact of sustainability disclosures on market performance,
which is then elaborated into three research questions. The first question is
about the probability of issuing sustainability report among 50 constituent
stocks in Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index (HSI). The second one is about the
connections between sustainability reports and the industry companies belong
to. The third one is about the links between sustainability reporting and market
performance.
Previous literature explained the existence of sustainability report by two sets
of theories. Social-political theories (political economy theory, stakeholder
theory and legitimacy theory) offer insights about companies facing social and
political pressures to provide environmentally information, which implies that
companies belong to environmentally sensitive industries are more likely to
deliver certain information. Voluntary disclosure theory suggested that superior
companies will provide information to distinguish with the inferior ones, which
infers that there is a co
elation between sustainability information and market
performance.
Data collected in the companies’ websites to analyse the links between
sustainability reports, industry and market performance. The results is that
sustainability reports have significant relationships with industry and market
perception. This study concludes that disclosers outperform non-disclosers,
which may provide an insights for the managers of non-disclosing companies.
Comment [OM1]: Note the student
immediately launches into the overall
aim of the project.
Comment [OM2]: There are some
small English language difficulties in
the assignment, but in terms of the
core elements of a high quality
student research project, this paper is
very well done.
Comment [OM3]: The student
makes some effort to link this project
with a theoretical background. This
is not absolutely essential but it is one
of the elements that leads to this
eing a “high distinction” assignment.
Comment [OM4]: So a good
executive study gives a hint of how the
data was collected and the results, as
well as the other elements (theoretical
ackground, etc). This executive
summary is excellent.
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Table of Contents
1 Introduction ........................................................................................ XXXXXXXXXX4
1.1 Problem Statement ................................................................ XXXXXXXXXX4
1.2 Research aim and research questions ............................... XXXXXXXXXX5
2 Literature review ............................................................................... XXXXXXXXXX6
2.1 Sustainability report and its development .......................... XXXXXXXXXX6
2.2 Social-political theories ......................................................... XXXXXXXXXX6
2.3 Voluntary disclosure theory .................................................. XXXXXXXXXX9
3 Methodology .................................................................................... XXXXXXXXXX11
3.1 Data collection ...................................................................... XXXXXXXXXX11
3.2 Data analysis ........................................................................ XXXXXXXXXX11
3.2.1 Sustainability report ......................................................... XXXXXXXXXX12
3.2.2 Shareholder return, market perception and industry .. XXXXXXXXXX12
4 Findings and analysis .................................................................... XXXXXXXXXX13
4.1 Descriptive Statistics ........................................................... XXXXXXXXXX13
4.2 Bivariate Co
elations .......................................................... XXXXXXXXXX15
4.3 Logistic Regression Results ............................................... XXXXXXXXXX16
5 Discussion ....................................................................................... XXXXXXXXXX17
5.1 H1: Sustainability reports are significantly related to the industry the
company belongs to as implied in social-political theories ...... XXXXXXXXXX17
5.2 H2: Sustainability reports are significantly related to the shareholder
eturns (growth in earnings per share) as implied in voluntary disclosure
theories H3: Sustainability reports are significantly related to the market