Abstract

Corporate disclosure of human capital has received growing research attention in different countries and markets. While past studies have explored the antecedent and implications of reporting human capital, studies on how far those disclosure practices actually meet the stakeholders’ expectations are still lacking. Hence, this study attempt to apply the stakeholder theory to frame the human capital reporting practices by the corporations in Malaysia. The methodology of this study is twofold; firstly, to develop human capital reporting measurement items as per the stakeholders’ expectation and their perceived importance of those items through a Delphi technique, and secondly, to determine the extent of human capital disclosure practices through a content analysis of the annual reports. The findings indicate that despite stakeholders’ high perceived importance on human capital disclosures, the corporate reporting practices are still at an inferior stage. This study contributes in such a way to fill the gap in the literature by exploring the current extent of human capital reporting by the listed corporations in Malaysia and how far such disclosure met the stakeholders’ expectations. This study also highlights the significance of the stakeholders’ voice and participation as one of the main driver towards sustainability reporting.

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