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This chapter outlines incorporation of voluntary environmental accounting standards into national law as evidenced by the Scandinavian experience. In illustrating such hardening of soft law approaches it highlights difficulties national authorities face when attempting to regulate globalised commercial entities with extra-territorial activities. Adoption at national level of these standards into legally binding obligations illustrates convergence of global governance standards even where there is no central authority or designed codification.

Doctrinal legal research and literature review. To illustrate the incorporation of voluntary standards at a national level, Scandinavian examples (Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland) were chosen – frequently upheld as best practice in requiring the reporting of environmental information financial reports.

The research shows that the most proactive national authorities in this regard are endorsing certain voluntary standards and rewarding their use with reduced regulatory burden. I first outline certain voluntary environmental standards and then illustrate adoption of these standards into legally binding frameworks.

The main limitation was difficulty in finding English language versions of some national regulations.

This chapter seeks to illustrate a normativisation of soft law frameworks into legally binding national obligations. Viewed through the phenomenon of Global Administrative Law it would seem evident that national authorities are willing to adopt various international voluntary standards to regulate the increasingly globalised actions of companies.

Voluntary standards and the various reporting methods of non-financial information is an extremely broad regulatory sphere with decentralised regulation and parallel regulatory frameworks. This chapter, in illustrating the convergence of environmental governance standards through normativisation of previously voluntary standards, will assist the reader in attaining an overview of the extent of this regulatory convergence.

The Dodd-Frank Financial Reform Act sets new whistleblowing standards for internal accountants and external auditors who fail to resolve differences internally with top management on financial reporting matters. Whistleblowers are eligible to receive a financial reward under Dodd-Frank if they “voluntarily” provide “original” information and meet other criteria. Interpretation 102-4 of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants Code establishes reporting obligations for external auditors to meet the requirements of Dodd-Frank. The purpose of this paper is to critically evaluate the standards to better understand the whistleblowing process. A review of the literature identifies areas of concern in deciding whether to blow the whistle. The paper contributes to the literature by integrating thoughts, ideas, and issues raised by prior researchers and considerations specific to the whistleblowing process. The analysis results in the proposal of specific unanswered questions about the process that can guide future researchers.

Introduction: Nonfinancial reporting is the way in which a company provides information to stakeholders on the social, environmental, and economic impact and performance of its past and present activities. Aim: The objective of the chapter is to analyze the stage and the way of implementation of the requirements of the Non-Financial Reporting Directive by the Romanian companies. Method: In order to carry out the study, we analyzed, structured, and synthesized the public information in order to identify companies that have the obligation to report, thus 721 companies were identified with more than 500 employees on December 31, 2019. Results: The main identified characteristics of the companies consisted in the fact that most of them carried out the activity in the manufacturing industry, had their headquarters in the Bucharest-Ilfov region, most of the companies operating according to Company Law were not listed on the stock exchange. Regarding the financial indicators, 81% of companies registred profit and 52% had a turnover of more than 50 million euros. Regarding the manner of application of the Directive requirements, from the analyzed sample of 22 companies listed on the stock exchange, it was found that 41% of the companies chose to present the nonfinancial information in a separate report. Conclusion: The level of compliance with reporting requirements is still uncertain, as for most companies the information are not public, only listed companies are concerned with improving reporting. İmplications and Originality of the Chapter: The study may be a benchmark in further analysis of the transparency of nonfinancial information conducted by companies and may help in future analysis of their evolution over time.

Recently Italy has engaged in an extensive promotion of corporate social responsibility (CSR) for not-for-profit organisations (NPOs). A major reform of the sector was approved in 2016, with the aim of combating corruption. Accordingly, NPOs will be eligible to receive public funds and tax benefits only when they demonstrate that they produce social impacts through their activities. To give an account of the social impacts produced, the reform introduced mandatory reporting requirements: the formulation of a social report (SR) that has to be published on the NPO’s website along with its financial statement.

The chapter first reviews the Italian ongoing path of reform for NPOs, focusing on the mandatory reporting requirements. Second, it reviews the previous empirical research on SRs in Italian NPOs to provide a picture of the voluntarily reporting practices before the recent reform entered into force.

The chapter finds that SRs in Italian NPOs are in their infancy. They are not used to disclose social impacts or to legitimate NPOs. SR practices usually lack common frameworks, disclosure of outputs and outcomes, stakeholder engagement, dissemination and assurance by third parties.

The chapter contributes to the international debate on CSR by providing the perspective of reporting requirements and practices in Italian NPOs. It analyses the ongoing reform of NPOs and gives the stock of SR practices prior to the reform entering into force. This makes it possible for future research to assess the impact produced by the reform.

The Anti-Money Laundering and Counter Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) Thematic Review of Banking & Insurance sectors conducted by Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) in 2013 indicated that oversight functions are still inadequate in the areas of compliance, internal audit, board of directors and senior management. The oversight functions refer to the AML/CFT compliance programme, which financial institutions, including Islamic banks, are obliged to execute as a part of mitigating activities against money laundering and terrorist financing. The main purpose of this chapter is to analyse whether there is any improvement in the oversight functions at the Islamic banks in Malaysia since the release of the thematic review report by BNM on 17 September 2014. This research is important as penalty for non-compliance under Section 22 of the Anti-Money Laundering, Anti-Terrorism Financing and Proceeds of Unlawful Activities Act 2001 (AMLATFPUAA) is severe. Section 22 of AMLATFPUAA entails personal responsibility on the compliance officer of an Islamic bank and not the reporting institution as a whole. Qualitative research method via interview is employed to gauge the extent of Islamic banks’ adherence to AML/CFT compliance programme. This chapter is significant as it provides Islamic banks and future researchers with the details of the compliance study as well as the current status of AML/CFT compliance programme within the Islamic banks in Malaysia.

The WTO dispute settlement process is an improvement to the original GATT dispute settlement mechanism. However, it fails to assure a timely implementation and enforcement of the dispute settlement body (DSB) recommendations. To this date, the issue of mandatory enforcement is still open to interpretation. The number of ‘matters’ that have been subject to WTO dispute settlement stands at 266 over the 1995–2006 period. The number of implementation disputes has increased since 1998 and stand at 34 as of January 1, 2007. This chapter reviews the process of dispute settlements and enforcements since 1995 and to argue for the interpretation of ‘WTO agreements’ as ‘binding contracts’ whose breach must be evaluated as either ‘efficient’ or ‘non-efficient’ when discussing enforcement. In this context the non-compliance issue may be viewed as an ‘efficient breach’ where the only efficient remedy is a ‘fine’ rather than the usual practice of ‘suspension of concessions or other obligations’ to the Respondent. What sets our approach apart from earlier discussion is that it does not view ‘suspension of concessions’ as a sufficiently burdensome and efficient sanction. A ‘fine’ on the other hand may serve as a ‘buy out’ of a Respondents WTO obligations, and can be transferred to the negatively affected domestic producers in the Complainant's market as compensation for losses.

In highly digitalised countries such as Denmark, statistics show that one out of four employees has experienced high levels of stress. However, despite ample research evidence on the presence of technostress, the knowledge on this phenomenon is not yet part of the material and guidelines from official authorities. Previous research on technostress provides quantitative psychological and neurophysiological perspectives on technostress, focussing on the individual, the technology or the technological environment. The authors see this as a limited approach, as it leaves out the social environment in which technostress arises. The authors aim to expose the sociological mechanisms that contribute to technostress by using the sociological lens of obligation. The authors ask: ‘What is the knowledge that the sociological lens of obligation can bring to the theoretical understanding of technostress?’ To answer our research question, the authors employ an embedded case study in Denmark by looking into the existing political material and interviews with 14 employees across 6 organisations. The authors find that stress in practice is mostly addressed from a response perspective, which points to the individual. This view is inherent in how the individuals take responsibility for the technostress they experience. Another critical finding from our data is that technostress is socially constructed. The authors contribute to theory by using a new-to-IS theory and a qualitative approach to technostress research, which allows us to uncover how the social construction of obligation impacts the individual employee. Our theoretical contributions point to a need for practice to move in the direction of seeing technostress as a societal, rather than solely individual, responsibility.

Based on a single and innovative case study (Siggelkow, 2007; Yin, 2014), this research aims to identify the main issues of non-financial reporting. They are related to:

the complexity of the corporate social responsibility (Alcouffe, Berland, Dreveton, & Essid, 2010; Ancori, 2008; Antheaume, 2007; Brichard, 1996; Buritt, 2004; Chan, 2005; Gray & Bebbington, 2001; Herborn, 2005; Savall & Zardet, 2013; Vatn, 2009);

the legislator’s and stakeholders’ expectations (Ancori, 2005; Batifoulier, 2001; Caillaud & Tirole, 2007; Lewis, 1969); and

the company’s expectations (Argyris & Schön, 1978; Chiapello & Gilbert, 2013; David 1998; Grimand, 2012; Moisdon, 1997; Senge, 1992; Wood, 1991).

Symmetrically, it reveals possible pitfalls. Through the study of the way the Rémy Cointreau Group developed its reporting tool, the authors analyze how a company can take the opportunity of a legal obligation to deploy a strategy of non-financial reporting that comes to support and structure a responsible approach. Of course, these results are only replicable under certain conditions related to this singular case.