Board Independence and Corporate Social Responsibility Disclosure: The Mediating Role of the Presence of Family Ownership Bansal, Shashank Lopez-Perez, Maria Victoria Rodríguez Ariza, Lazaro Family business Independent directors Corporate social responsibility Voluntary disclosure This paper examines the impact of board independence on corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure and analyses the moderating effect of the presence of family ownership. Using an international sample from 29 countries from 2006 to 2014, our panel Tobit estimation shows that board independence is negatively associated with CSR disclosure practices and they present opposition to CSR disclosure practices. However, family ownership moderates the relationship and enforces the positive orientation of independent directors towards CSR disclosure. This shows that the presence of family ownership reduces independent director concern of reputation risks associated with receiving misleading information and family firms decrease the asymmetries of information between the independent director and management. The study also finds that independent directors encourage CSR disclosure in family firms more in civil law countries where investor protection is low compared to common law countries where investor protection is high. 2019-05-03T10:32:55Z 2019-05-03T10:32:55Z 2018-07-05 info:eu-repo/semantics/article Bansal, S.; Lopez-Perez, MªV.; Rodriguez-Ariza, L. Board Independence and Corporate Social Responsibility Disclosure: The Mediating Role of the Presence of Family Ownership. Adm. Sci. 2018, 8, 33; doi:10.3390/admsci8030033. 2076-3387 http://hdl.handle.net/10481/55580 eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/es/ info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess Atribución 3.0 España MDPI