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This paper aims to critically analyse the transposition implications of Union Directive 2014/95. This Directive identified the need to raise the transparency of the social and environmental information provided by the undertakings to a similarly high level across all Member States.

The paper considers how the European Member States of the European Union (EU) have transposed Directive 2014/95 into their regulations. The focus is on the juridification of social accounting in the pursuit of creating an overlapping consensus through Habermas’s concept of internal colonisation. The paper uses qualitative content analysis to scrutinise the national laws that transpose Directive 2014/95, discussing both what has been accomplished and what can be achieved by the release of future legislative provisions.

Despite the aim of Directive 2014/95 to create a common language for disclosing non-financial information, this study shows an implementation gap among and between Member States and an inconsistent picture of the employment of this Directive. Its implementation in the 28 European countries was considered a process of colonisation in implementing Union directives among European undertakings. However, the implementation process, which exemplifies Habermas’s juridification, has failed due to the lack of balance between moral discourse and actions.

This paper contributes to the ongoing debates concerning the implementation of mandatory disclosure of environmental and social information in the EU Member States, promoting new directions for the EU’s democratic laws on social accounting. In addition, it offers an example of how internal colonisation only catalyses effects when moral laws are legitimised through the provision of procedures.

This paper investigates whether and how Directive 2014/95/EU affects financial performance as well as its moderation effect on the relationship between financial and non-financial performance, involving different stakeholders' perspectives.

We adopted the panel data approach to perform random effects regression analysis on a sample of 435 European listed non-financial companies, considering a timeframe of six years. Furthermore, the moderation effect of the Directive 2014/95/EU on the relationship between financial and non-financial performance has been tested.

NFD regulation negatively affects firms' operating profitability and shareholder value while produces no effects on debtholders' returns. Nevertheless, the Directive 2014/95/EU has general positive moderating effects on the relationship between non-financial and financial performance, mitigating the direct costs induced by pursuing non-financial performance.

Shifting from mimetic to coercive isomorphism caused a strengthening of the complementarity between financial and non-financial performance dimensions, extending the concept of performance itself. The analysis carried out is limited to a short-term timeframe and on non-financial companies subject to the Directive 2014/95/EU.

The paper highlights trade-offs between the costs induced by non-financial activities and the benefits of being compliant with the non-financial disclosure (NFD) regulation, supporting managers in allocating business resources.

This paper is among the first that investigates the impact of mandatory NFD on the relationship between non-financial and financial performance. It is also one of the earliest in finding some pieces of evidence on the direct impact of Directive 2014/95/EU on EU companies' financial performance.

This paper discusses the current state of research into Directive 2014/95/EU and non-financial disclosure (NFD), with the aim of offering a future research agenda.

The authors have conducted a systematic literature review of 78 studies spanning seven years (2014–2020) that address Directive 2014/95/EU.

The literature review revealed four main avenues for future research. First, future studies could focus on addressing issues related to the EU Directive's potential impacts, both in terms of NFD and companies' financial performance. Second, because context plays an important role in defining the regulation's impact, future research should consider these contextual factors in NFD. Third, further research should investigate the interplay between the binding requirements of the Directive and the non-binding guidelines suggested to implement it. Finally, future research would do well to employ additional theoretical approaches in order to interpret the Directive's diverse effects for various countries, organisations and timelines.

This research agenda is intended to help scholars in this field to understand what has yet to be known in order to develop a complete understanding of the EU Directive on non-financial information disclosure.

Focussing on the Directive's implementation across countries and organisations with a longitudinal approach, this paper could indicate whether or not mandatory reporting enhances non-financial information disclosure and consequently, organisational actions. This work could inform both companies' and policymakers' approach to disclosure, whether mandatory or otherwise.

To date, many studies have focussed on specific issues regarding the EU Directive. This paper, however, presents the first systematic literature review considering the current state of research into the EU Directive, thus drawing a future research agenda.

This paper aims to investigate how relational connectivity can enhance accountability through non-financial reporting regulation in Europe. The paper contributes to the mandatory disclosure literature and provides practical implications for the application of the EU Directive 2014/95/EU.

A case study research methodology is used, analyzing how a listed Italian insurance company embraces a dialogic communication approach with stakeholders along 2018.

From a theoretical standpoint, this paper enhances the scholarly understanding of the relevance and role of the concept of relational connectivity as a mean for effectively enhancing accountability, providing some prerequisites for effectively implementing relational connectivity. From a practical perspective, results address the criticism related to the directive 2014/95/EU guidelines in effectively helping the organization toward enhancing accountability. Through a case study, results show how companies can achieve in practice the goal of enhancing corporate accountability.

The paper is original, as it addresses the topic of relational connectivity applied to the EU Directive 2014/95/EU. Results contribute to the development of the understanding of the mandatory disclosure in a dialogic perspective. Additionally, the paper addresses a case study showing how the analyzed company used relational connectivity to engage an effective dialogue with stakeholders.

This study aims to investigate the differences in the extent of non-financial disclosure (NFD) across companies listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange over the period surrounding the implementation of the Directive 2014/95/EU.

The sample comprising 134 selected companies. Content analysis and a disclosure index were used to measure the level of NFD. Non-financial reporting practices in the two years before (2015) and one year after (2017) the implementation of the Directive were compared.

The results highlight that there is already a high level of compliance with the European Union’s regulation. The extent of the NFD across different thematic aspects in reporting media increased significantly between 2015 and 2017 in particular in human rights and anti-corruption. The Directive had the largest impact on those firms with previously low levels of NFD and led to more homogeneity of NFD across different industries.

The study contributes to the understanding of the impact of the Directive on the NFD practices by European Union companies. The research has important implications for policymakers because it revealed that mandatory regulations form a crucial instrument in improving the harmonization of NFD. The research suggests that, due to the Directive, stakeholders should be provided with more comprehensive information that they need in their decision-making process.

In the last few years, the European context has been characterised by a high degree of attention paid by policymakers, practitioners and academics to the effects related to the transposition of Directive 2014/95/EU by the member states. In particular, one the main issues of the intervention made by the European Commission is represented by the theoretical misalignment between corporate communications and actions. According to this evidence, this paper aims to shed light on this debate through a critical evaluation of the effectiveness of Directive 2014/95/EU.

The analysis was built using panel data analysis on a sample of 813 European listed companies. Furthermore, the authors performed additional analysis and robustness checks to assess the reliability of the analysis.

The analysis underlined the enabling role of the reporting scope, external assurance and corporate social responsibility (CSR) committees on sustainability reporting. Furthermore, the research highlighted the need to pay specific attention to the real contribution provided by companies to the sustainable development goals.

The research provided theoretical insights into the effects related to mandatory sustainability reporting, which represents an emerging field in accounting research.

The analysis revealed the limited effects of Directive 2014/95/EU. In this regard, the paper contributes to the debate about accounting regulation in Europe.

This paper will shed light on the role of Directive 2014/95/EU in sustainable development. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first attempt to analyse CSR decoupling in Europe after the transposition of Directive 2014/95/EU by the member states.

Motivated by claims that the International Integrated Reporting Framework (IRF) can be used to comply with Directive 2014/95/EU (the EU Directive) on non-financial and diversity disclosure, the purpose of this study is to examine whether companies can comply with corporate reporting laws using de facto standards or frameworks.

The authors adopted an interpretivist approach to research along with current regulatory studies that aim to investigate business compliance with the law using private sector standards. To support the authors’ arguments, publicly available secondary data sources were used, including newsletters, press releases and websites, reports from key players within the accounting profession, public documents issued by the European Commission and data from corporatergister.com.

To become a de facto standard or framework, a private standard-setter requires the support of corporate regulators to mandate it in a specific national jurisdiction. The de facto standard-setter requires a powerful coalition of actors who can influence the policymakers to allow its adoption and diffusion at a national level to become mandated. Without regulatory support, it is difficult for a private and voluntary reporting standard or framework to be adopted and diffused. Moreover, the authors report that the <IRF> preferences stock market capitalism over sustainability because it privileges organisational sustainability over social and environmental sustainability, emphasises value creation over holding organisations accountable for their impact on society and the environment and privileges the entitlements of providers of financial capital over other stakeholders.

The authors question the suitability of the goals of both the <IRF> and the EU Directive during and after the COVID-19 crisis. The planned changes to both need rethinking as we head into uncharted waters. Moreover, the authors believe that the people cannot afford any more reporting façades.

The authors offer a critical analysis of the link between the <IRF> and the EU Directive and how the <IRF> can be used to comply with the EU Directive. By questioning the relevance of the compliance question, the authors advance a critique about the relevance of these and other legal and de facto frameworks, particularly considering the more pressing needs that must be met to address the economic, social and environmental implications of the COVID-19 crisis.

The aim of this paper is to examine the effects of the European Non-financial Reporting Directive (2014/95/EU) on firms' sustainability reporting practices, especially reporting quantity (i.e. availability of information) and quality (i.e. comparability and credibility).

To test the main hypotheses, the authors select 905 treated firms from the EU 28 + 2 countries for a difference-in-differences regression analysis of dependent variables from the Refinitiv ESG database.

The results suggest that the Directive influences sustainability reporting quantity and quality. Treated firms provide around 4 percentage points more sustainability information (i.e. availability) than propensity score matched control firms and are 19 percent more likely to receive external assurance (i.e. credibility). However, we also find that the Directive is not the decisive factor in the adoption of GRI guidelines (i.e. comparability).

The analysis is restricted to large listed firms and does not account for small, mid-sized and private firms. Further, cross-cultural differences which influence sustainability reporting are controlled for but not investigated in detail. The authors derive several suggestions for future research related to the NFR Directive and its revision.

The authors’ findings have practical implications for the future development of sustainability reporting in the EU and for other regulators considering the adoption of sustainability reporting.

This study is the first to provide evidence on the NFR Directive's reporting effects across multiple countries. It adds to the growing literature on the consequences of mandatory sustainability reporting. Additionally, this paper introduces a novel measurement approach sustainability information quantity that could benefit researchers.

This paper aims to investigate how firms disclose the presentation and content of business model (BM) information in corporate reports to manage their legitimacy in response to European Directive 2014/95.

Legitimacy theory is used to identify disclosure strategies pursued by firms in reaction to the new regulation. To understand how firms adopt these strategic responses, semiotic analysis is applied to a sample of European companies’ reports through Crowther’s (2012) framework, which is based on a mechanism of binary oppositions.

Half of the sample strategically choose to comply with the European Union (EU) Directive regarding BM information through the use of non-accounting language, figures, and diagrams. Other firms did not disclose any substantive information but managed the impression of compliance with the regulation, while the remainder of the sample dismissed the regulation altogether.

This study demonstrates how organisations use the disclosure of BM information in their corporate reports to control their legitimacy. The results support the idea that firms can acquire legitimacy by complying with the law or giving the impression of compliance with the regulation. This study provides evidence on the first-time adoption of the EU Directive, and therefore, future research can enlarge the sample and conduct the analysis over a broader time frame.

A more precise indication of the EU Directive regarding “where” firms should report BM information, “how” the description of a BM should refer to the environmental, social, governance (ESG) factors, and a set of performance measures to track the evolution of a company’s BM overtime is needed.

While there has been a notable amount of research that has applied content analysis methodologies to investigate the thematic and syntactic aspects of BM disclosure in corporate reports, only a few studies have investigated BM disclosures in relation to the EU Directive. Furthermore, the application of semiotic analysis extends beyond traditional content analysis methodologies because it considers the structure of the story at many levels, thus developing a more complete textual picture of how BMs are described, allowing an analysis of the reasons behind the disclosure strategies pursued by firms.