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The purpose of this research objective was to analyse social reporting within MERCO Business companies both from the point of view of the quantity of information disclosed and the references about their quality. This approach constitutes a novelty with respect to previous literature on the subject.

This paper assesses how social reporting is being carried out by the companies included in the MERCO Corporate Reputation Business Monitor, MERCO Business, during the period 2014–2016. The methodological design include the construction of a weighted index based on two unweighted indexes related to the quantity revealed and the quality detected. In addition, this study integrates intellectual capital and social responsibility approaches in order to deep into these voluntary disclosures.

While social reporting is considerable from a quantitative point of view within MERCO Business companies, they do not reach very high levels of quality, which is good to counteract the final value of the quantity–quality index that the authors' propose.

In MERCO Business companies, quantity is not a proxy for quality within social reporting. In this sense, only considering both dimensions it will be possible to assess these disclosures in a more complete way.

This study allows a more accurate and comparable view of social reporting than those studies that only focus on how much information is disclosed. Besides, it involves an important advance in the identification of the relative quality of social reporting, opening a new line of research that will be key to comparing this type of disclosures in a more homogeneous way. Likewise, the results can be applied in future studies in the intellectual capital field given the complementarity between both types of disclosures.

Likewise, these results will be of interest for future actions aimed at regulating the improvement of the quality of social reporting in the hands of managers, investors and regulators.

The authors have tested the value of quality in social reporting using a weighted index amongst the most reputable companies in the Spanish scenario. These disclosures have been compared with and without the use of it in order to deduce its value to obtain valid conclusions about social reporting.

Intellectual capital (IC) has been shown to play a crucial role in promoting competitive success among cooperatives as well as in other types of organizations. However, cooperatives are rarely included in this line of research. This paper aims to analyze how IC in agrifood cooperatives influences their prominence by fostering responsible research and innovation (RRI), reputation and performance.

A theoretical model was developed based on a literature review, and a quantitative study was conducted, including a representative sample of the current most prominent Spanish agrifood cooperatives. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to examine the validity of constructs, path relationships and recent advances in the predictive model assessment.

This study’s findings show the specific role of human capital (HC) for enhancing social and structural capital in cooperatives. It was concluded that there is a need to revise and reconsider the role-played by IC in the cooperative movement.

The main practical contribution is to offer a specific vision of IC for agrifood cooperatives in order to maximize their market prominence. Since the study was conducted in Spain and based on a cross-sectional research approach, even though the new methodological tool partial least squares (PLS) predict was used, the authors cannot affirm whether IC will have the long-term expected effects as assumed in this research and in all contexts of the agrifood industry.

This is the first empirical study that has examined IC in agrifood cooperatives in Spain, with attention focused on the role of HC as a predictor of market success.

In this paper, the authors analyze the use of content analysis in disclosing voluntarily information on intangible assets, the intangible assets disclosures (IAD). The purpose of this paper is to conduct a structured literature review (SLR) that assesses the possibilities and limitations of content analysis.

To that end, the authors analyze the existing literature on the topic in the main international databases. In all, 74 empirical articles utilizing content analysis as a research methodology for IAD were reviewed. Regarding the selection of sources, the authors should indicate that the SLR performed includes academic studies published in journals or presented at conferences and that are always subject to a double process of anonymous review.

The obtained results indicate that despite the frequent use of content analysis in studies on IAD, its use does not meet all expectations.

The study synthesizes the research on content analysis for the case of information on intangible assets, offering an updated and global framework for future researchers through the SLR.

Among other problems, the authors found its excessive emphasis on the amount disclosed in the annual report, ignoring other reports in which more information regarding intangible assets is available, such as in the case of the sustainability reports. Furthermore, the use of very different coding systems and its exclusive use without being combined with other methodologies are detected. These aspects affect the quality problems of the sources used, which directly results in the utility of the evidenced findings.

These conclusions allow the authors to conclude on the need to open different lines of study that review the use of content analysis in this topic.

The work focuses on the quality of disclosures more so than on the quantity, offering a critical view that summarizes the utility of the employment of content analysis for this type of disclosure and its implications for future research on this topic. Despite previous studies, the authors highlight the new insights revealed from IAD research, especially since the seminal paper of Dumay and Cai (2014).

This paper aims to review sustainability reporting understood as any type of social and environmental disclosures (SED) in its relationship with corporate reputation within the most reputed companies in Spain according to MERCO business monitor ranking (2014-2016).

To shed light on the relationship reputation-SED, two alternative models were tested, thought the use of structural equation model (SEM) and partial least squares (PLS), with longitudinal data.

Both models supported the hypotheses although the model linking reputation to SED was slightly better, questioning the use of SED by reputation leader companies.

The paper study the linkage, sign and causality, between reputation and SED by introducing two alternative models. SED and reputation are receiving considerable attention into the business scope, although their relationship is not agreed by previous literature. There are contradictory evidences that lead us to question the sense of this relation.

The contribution will be of interest to managers in terms of the value of this type of reporting from a strategic point of view. If reputation favours this type of disclosures, these will be issues to be taken into account to obtain a better competitive advantage through market differentiation.

The results will be of interest for future studies and actions aimed at regulating the improvement of this type of reporting not only in the hands of academics and practitioners but also investors and regulators.

This study is an advance in the description of the SED-reputation relationship and contributes to this new line of research with new insights. Another contribution is the way to understand sustainability reporting. This paper analyses SED from the twofold point of view of the quantity of information and, the existing references about its quality and adding the lag effect between both variables.

The purpose of this paper is to address a theoretical and methodological framework to validate a model for explaining social responsibility in cooperative societies.

A qualitative methodology based on the assessment and agreement of an expert panel has been used. More exactly, a Delphi technique will help achieve agreement about the set of indicators previously defined and to get a single and agreed definition.

The results consist of a consensus scale for each variable of the proposed model. This unanimity in the opinions about the final result will be the basis for further quantitative treatment of the proposed conceptual model.

Limitations derive from the initial state of the study and the need to practical analysis.

Cooperative societies could have a way to analyze their position related to social responsibility. In general, contributions to social responsibility have improved, in particular, in the field of these entities.

The paper contributes to properly measure the variables of the conceptual model. The main variable of analysis, called Orientation to Social Responsibility in Cooperatives (OSRCOOP), is not directly observable, and it is necessary to measure it through a set of indicators. Likewise, with the other strategic variables with which OSRCOOP is related to the model proposed (member satisfaction, innovation, quality of service and cooperative outcome or performance).

We must acknowledge the importance of intangibles in today’s economies and the controversy over the accounting and reporting of these assets. For this reason, the purpose of this paper is to synthesize the lessons learned from research to date and identify gaps in that research that would be useful to academics and practitioners.

The literature review was conducted after an analysis of the most important academic databases in the period of 1990-2013: ABI Inform Complete, CSIS, EconLit, ISOC, Journal Citation Reports, Scopus, Emerald, Springer, and Google Scholar.

The authors offer a summary of the main gaps in the literature on intellectual capital disclosures, among which the authors perceive a need for increased qualitative or explanatory research, which would allow further analysis of such decisions.

Specifically, the main problem encountered in the research on voluntary disclosure of intangibles appears to relate to the type of methodology used, which is usually quantitative or descriptive.

Given that the principal limitations in the field of the disclosure of intangibles have been discussed, the authors conclude by indicating the principal directions for future research.

Qualitative analysis is absent in the literature the authors reviewed, and considered it fundamental to understanding this type of disclosure. In fact, the development of future lines of research could provide better-quality intangible asset reporting.

Although there are previous studies on this topic, the authors believe that the main contribution of this study is to offer an integrated framework of existing findings concerning decisions by companies to disclose information on intangibles, a topic on which previous literature is sparse.

The main objective of this paper is to analyse the content and extent of human capital disclosure by Spanish companies. It studies various factors related to the board of directors’ composition and functioning. These factors can be seen as mechanisms of corporate governance and the moderating role of managerial ownership, which help predict the behaviour of managers in relation to the human capital disclosure.

This study develops and applies a more comprehensive framework for coding information on human capital, integrating the intellectual capital and social responsibility perspectives in order to explain the content and extent of human capital disclosure. The research was based on a content analysis of 210 corporate reports from 2007 to 2016. A system-GMM estimator was used to test the hypotheses in four dynamic linear regression models of balanced panel data in order to address concerns of endogeneity.

The results show that companies are adapting to new regulations and voluntarily disclosing information on human capital – a trend which signals their commitment to responsible attitudes towards employees and stakeholders. The results also show that board composition and functioning are mechanisms of supervision, control and legitimacy that promote human capital disclosure, with managerial ownership acting as moderator for aligning interests between managers and stakeholders.

This study contributes to the literature on human capital disclosure by introducing a broader conception of human capital to coding information. It accomplishes this through considering aspects of the intellectual capital and social responsibility approaches, which provide a better understanding of companies’ human capital disclosure. In addition, it seeks to enrich the debate about the effects of corporate governance mechanisms– such as boards of directors and managerial ownership – on human capital disclosure.