Social Responsibility and Sustainability Accounting: Key Corporate Performance Drivers and Measures

Dear Colleagues,

In recent years, the blend of the global financial and sustainability crisis caused by increasing climate change, irresponsible consumption, poor working conditions, social inequality, water usage, waste, financial instability, and the most recent COVID-19 pandemic has created a wide business case for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Sustainable Development. As a result, organizations are no longer expected to merely focus on profit maximization objectives, but rather to align their vision, business strategy, models, operations, and value creation processes with environmental, social, and human rights concerns, for the sake of present and future generations.

The launch in 2015 of the 2030 United Nations Agenda for Sustainable Development has further solidified this need by the means of the adoption of 17 Sustainable Development Goals’ (SDGs) and 169 associated targets which provide companies with a comprehensive framework to address, in a balanced and integrated manner, CSR and Sustainable Development challenges through the three pillars: economic, social, and environmental. Attuned, a renewed pressure on firms by investors and other stakeholders to broaden the scope of their reporting practices has emerged, paving the way for expanding corporate accounting and accountability boundaries to embrace the triple bottom line of economic profitability, environmental protection, and social responsibility. Accordingly, by releasing the Directive 2014/95, the European Union (EU) has marked a final step in the regulatory process started in 2003 with the adoption of the Accounts Modernization Directive 2003/51, mandating certain large undertakings which are public-interest entities, to draw up a non-financial statement including information about environmental and social issues. The EU Directive also promoted the use of relevant non-financial key performance indicators to enhance the comparability and consistency of information disclosed.

However, several scholars advocate that the adoption of a mandatory approach does not automatically imply higher quality and transparency of non-financial information; accordingly, the debate on voluntary vs. mandatory non-financial reporting is still ongoing. Moreover, the EU directive does not prescribe a specific standard or rules to convey non-financial information, also allowing companies the possibility to choose among the different types of existing frameworks and reports to comply with the norm. This has resulted in a proliferation of reports (e.g., annual reports; sustainability reports; CSR reports; integrated reporting) and frameworks (e.g., Global Reporting Initiative (GRI); International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC); Account Ability (AA); the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC)), each with its strength and weaknesses, that companies are employing to provide investors and other stakeholders with non-financial information. As a consequence, corporate non-financial reporting practices are barely uniform both in terms of extent and quality.

Given these premises, the main aim of the Special Issue is to stimulate the debate about the different forms of corporate non-financial reporting, inviting scholars to critically examine the different ways companies are pursuing to demonstrate stakeholders their commitment towards CSR and sustainable development issues. Contributions that question the adoption of voluntary or mandatory non-financial approaches to non-financial reporting, in the light of the EU non-financial directive adoption, are also welcomed. Papers can be both theoretical and empirical.

The Special Issue will consider contributions related but not limited to the following topics:

• The role of the different types of reports (e.g., sustainability reports; CSR reports; integrated reporting) in complying with EU directive requirements;
• Sustainability reporting vs. integrated reporting: theoretical and practical implications;
• Sustainability accounting and management in practice;
• The use of relevant key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure non-financial business performance;
• The impact of regulation on non-financial disclosure;
• Voluntary versus mandatory non-financial reporting;
• Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) metrics disclosure and its determinants;
• SDGs implementation and reporting in both private and public sector entities;
• Emerging digital channels (e.g., company website, social media) and non-financial disclosure;
• The role of the assurance in enhancing the credibility of non-financial information;
• Corporate governance mechanisms and non-financial reporting.

References

Bebbington, J., & Unerman, J. (2018). Achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals: an enabling role for accounting research. Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, 31(1), 2–24.

Bebbington, J., Kirk, E. A., & Larrinaga, C. (2012). The production of normativity: A comparison of reporting regimes in Spain and the UK. Accounting. Organizations and Society, 37(2), 78–94.

Boiral, O., Heras-Saizarbitoria, I., & Brotherton, M. C. (2019). Assessing and improving the quality of sustainability reports: The auditors’ perspective. Journal of Business Ethics, 155(3), 703–721.

Camilleri, M.A. (2015), "Environmental, social and governance disclosures in Europe", Sustainability Accounting, Management and Policy Journal, Vol. 6 No. 2, pp. 224–242.

Doni, F., Bianchi Martini, S., Corvino, A. and Mazzoni, M. (2019), “Voluntary versus mandatory non-financial disclosure: EU Directive 95/2014 and sustainability reporting practices based on empirical evidence from Italy”, Meditari Accountancy Research, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print.

Ioannou, I., & Serafeim, G. (2017). The consequences of mandatory corporate sustainability reporting. Harvard Business School research working paper, (11–100).

La Torre, M., Sabelfeld, S., Blomkvist, M., Tarquinio, L. and Dumay, J. (2018), “Harmonising nonfinancial reporting regulation in Europe: practical forces and projections for future”, Meditari Accountancy Research, Vol. 26 No. 4, pp. 598–621.

Manes Rossi, F., Tiron-Tudor, A., Nicolò, G. and Zanellato, G. (2018), “Ensuring more sustainable reporting in Europe using non financial disclosure – De facto and De jure evidence”, Sustainability, Vol. 10, pp. 1162, pp. 1–20.

Venturelli, A., Caputo, F., Cosma, S., Leopizzi, R. and Pizzi, S. (2017), “Directive 2014/95/EU: are Italian companies already compliant?”, Sustainability, Vol. 9 No. 8, pp. 1385–1404.

Prof. Adriana Tiron-Tudor
Dr. Giuseppe Nicolò
Guest Editors

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