Sustainability reporting and corporate reputation of Malaysian IPO companies

The aim of this paper is to explore the relationship between sustainability reporting (SR) and corporate reputation (CR) in the context of initial public offering (IPO) companies in the developing market of Malaysia. This study utilises secondary data from 2007 to 2017 derived from the content analysis of the annual reports and Datastream of 139 sampled IPO companies listed on Bursa Malaysia. The study also employs ordinary least squares (OLS) regression. The result shows that CR has a positive association with SR quantity and quality and its dimensions, i.e., society, environmental, employee, and product. This result suggests that IPO companies can use SR practices to improve their CR. Most companies give little attention to SR issues. More research should be conducted to examine the SR by IPO companies due to the significant role that SR plays in improving the CR of Malaysian IPO companies. The findings can be used by financial institutions and regulatory bodies to encourage companies to be more responsible on SR issues. Businesses should incorporate social practices into their SR decisions. This paper underlines the importance of integrating social and organisational activities.