Impact of voluntary disclosures on corporate brand equity

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.