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Impact of Voluntary Disclosures on Corporate Brand Equity

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Abstract

Voluntary disclosures by firms have been gaining traction among the stakeholders as the inadequacies of mandatorily disclosed information are getting conspicuous. The customers are one of the most important stakeholder groups for any firm. This paper looks at how the extent and quality of voluntary disclosures by the supplier firms influence the impression that is formed in the minds of the users/buyers in the customer firms is manifested through the strength of the supplier brand. Consequently, we probe the effect voluntary disclosures have on corporate brand equity. This study has assessed the corporate brand equity of the firms directly from their customers which lends authenticity to the measured strength of the brand. This way the self-reporting bias is precluded from our research. The study was done on Indian B2B firms which is very crucial because business buyers pay more critical attention to the disclosures of their vendors. The findings strongly support that the better and more are the disclosures, stronger is the brand equity of the brands.

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Notes

  1. Group of 100 is an organization which consists of the top management from 100 of Australia’s largest corporations.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Rajendra Mishra School of Engineering Entrepreneurship, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, West Midnapore, West Bengal, 721302, India

    Titas Bhattacharjee

  2. Indian Institute of Management Ranchi, Suchana Bhawan, Audrey House Campus, Meur’s Road, Ranchi, Jharkhand, 834008, India

    Soumya Sarkar

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  1. Soumya Sarkar
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  2. Titas Bhattacharjee
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Correspondence to Soumya Sarkar.

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Sarkar, S., Bhattacharjee, T. Impact of Voluntary Disclosures on Corporate Brand Equity. Corp Reputation Rev 20, 125–136 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41299-017-0020-9

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