This paper proposes an alternative approach to corporate social disclosure analysis in order to link social information disclosed and corporate social performance. A survey of the literature dealing with description and explanation of corporate social disclosure practices underlines the inconsistency of the findings. As most of these researches use quantitative content analysis, we discuss the relevance of this instrument. In order to improve the description of corporate social practices as well as the explanation of the link between these disclosures and corporate social performance, we propose a qualitative approach, based on Carroll's social responsibility typology. A study on fifteen French companies, using both approaches, outlines the interest of this alternative method.