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This paper describes the social circumstances report, written for the MHRT in an historical setting, and incorporates a small‐scale audit to determine the effect of implementing national guidelines in July 2002. Sixty reports were audited ‐ thirty in the period immediately before the introduction of national guidelines, and thirty immediately following the introduction of national guidelines. These reports concerned only patients subject to a hospital order with restriction under Section 37/41 of the Mental Health Act 1983. National guidelines comprised 102 individual sub‐headings within 17 main headings. Each report was scored using these guidelines as a checklist. Results show that compliance as measured by the national guidelines significantly improved following their circulation.Very little previous research has been undertaken in this area and only by researchers from the legal profession. Further research may need to be undertaken by social work professionals themselves, and by local authorities, which may encourage others in the profession to build on this knowledge. At present the process appears to be exclusively a legal interest rather than a joint interest with social care.

This study analyses the scope of social and environmental reporting from the perspective of integrating it in financial reporting and comments on a new approach regarding the presentation of social and environmental information in the annual reports from Romanian companies’ perspective.

A literature review introduces and justifies the second part of the research. The latter is organised as an exploratory study based on interviews. It presents the current state of Romanian companies’ availability for reconsidering financial reporting from the perspective of corporate social responsibility.

While social and environmental involvement of Romanian companies is at an early stage, there is a basis for future development of corporate reporting by addressing social and environmental aspects. We noticed that companies have the tendency of responding rather to a mandatory framework than a voluntary one.

The limitations of the research are linked to the study population. The small number of Romanian companies that publicly manifest interest for social responsibility determined the choice of a qualitative instead of a quantitative research.

The exploratory study based on the case of Romania accompanies the present state of non-financial versus financial reporting in order to highlight measurable and non-measurable, but relevant, information to be considered in a future reporting framework.

The study advances new lines in accounting research by confronting the national and international perspectives of social and environmental reporting. Debates and arguments on the research results add value and utility to the research.

There are still many different theoretical approaches and practical interpretations about what an integrated report is. Starting from this premise, the overall purpose of this chapter is to critically analyze the relationship between integrated reporting (IR) and social/sustainability disclosure. Indeed, although some scholars considered IR as a tool to improve the sustainability approach of the companies allowing to disclose more relevant social information, others are more critical about the potentiality of IR to improve social disclosure. Therefore, the general research question is: Is there a natural link between IR and social disclosure (true love) or is the IR a practice to “normalize” the social disclosure and accounting (forced marriage)?

In the attempt to provide a preliminary answer to the research question, the chapter analyzes what is the approach of three categories: (1) academics; (2) soft-regulators; and (3) companies. From the methodological point of view, a mixed method of analysis has been adopted.

From the analysis of the three different points of view, IR can be considered as a “contested concept” because of the heterogeneous and sometimes conflicting interpretations and implementation that are done on this type of report. This leads to relevant theoretical and practical implications.

The purpose of our chapter is to explore the extent to which online repositories of stories related to corporate social responsibility (CSR), reported by companies, represent a tool which can contribute, combined with the potential pressure of the social networks, to perpetuating and increasing such reporting behaviour.

In order to explore this, we have analysed the CSR stories of companies published on the largest online repository from Romania, that is, the website www.responsabilitatesociala.ro. We explore two research questions: Could a repository site facilitate that more and more companies report their CSR activities? and Will a company that presented one case at some point in time present more cases in the next reporting period? For this purpose we have used as method the content analysis having as counting unit each article published and each company which, at some point, published something. Our analysis covered the articles published within 2006–2012 and thus we have used 1121 articles/case studies.

In terms of findings, we conclude that such online repository leads to an important increase in the number of companies having their CSR activities published, although such increase has not been steady. In our view such reporting started a trend. Some companies, after being published in a certain year may have not reported the following year, but nonetheless, new companies decided to publish about their CSR activities each year. In the case of the second question, we could not determine a particular pattern. The number of companies which published, at least in 6 out of the 7 years we have analysed, has been quite low – 12, and there have been big discrepancies between years and between articles per company.

The main limitation of our chapter is that we could not correlate the articles published with other variables, such as: reporting on Facebook and on the official webpage or the extent to which CSR managers from companies think that such repositories have exerted any type of good pressure on them to publish and report their activities.

This approach is important for CSR managers and other stakeholders – such repositories can be both a source of inspiration and a good practice model. One can ‘show, view and shop’ CSR activities in one stop online and take the example further. We believe that this is something specific for all countries, where CSR entered the business as a public relations (PR) concept and then evolved.

The value of our chapter consists in exploring such simple and on-hand online repositories and finding issues of interest for further research.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR)¹ has become such an important and popular concept along with the rise of the importance of sustainable development (SD) in the world. Nowadays, CSR is focused on goals such as poverty reduction and SD. It has become clear to the business world that SD is no longer only the concern of governments and related non-governmental organisations (NGOs), and that they should also immediately start becoming concerned about the sustainability of resources and human development along with their financial sustainability. In this sense, establishment of multi-stakeholder dialogues and partnerships among all these actors has also become extremely important.

This article analyzes the interplay between regulation and social and environmental reporting in northern Italian social enterprises. Specifically, it investigates how “non-accredited” social enterprises discharge voluntary accountability before and after the introduction of regulation making social and environmental reporting compulsory for “accredited-social enterprises.” By developing a content analysis on 170 stand-alone social and environmental reports, this article provides a longitudinal analysis of voluntary disclosures in a regulated context from 2006 (before regulation) to 2009 (after regulation). Based on the total number of disclosures and the average number of sentences per report, Italian “non-regulated” social enterprises showed increased voluntary disclosure on social and environmental matters from 2006 to 2009; however, when analyzing the average sentences per report, it emerges that the information contained in the stand-alone social and environmental reports decreased, especially disclosures related to “social-related issues.” This article looks beyond crude noncompliance analysis with legislation and analyzes if the regulation influences organizations’ voluntary disclosure. It analyzes all of the social and environmental disclosures provided by northern Italian “non-accredited” social enterprises before and after the introduction of regulation. The novelty of this article rests in the fact that it does not analyze the social and environmental disclosure of “legal social enterprises”; rather, it considers the whole voluntary disclosure context for “non-accredited” social enterprises in a regulated environment.

This paper provides a review of the progress made in both academic literature and corporate practice over the last forty years. Although there has been an increase in the number of companies producing social and environmental reports, the quality of the disclosures has not increased. Further, there is little evidence of progress in the integration of social and environmental impacts into management decisions. The paper provides suggestions on research needs to increase the integration of social and environmental impacts into management decisions and improve both the internal reporting and external disclosures and accountability of corporations.

Nowadays, social and environmental reporting is approached in different ways, paths and fields by either large-, small-, or medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). However, as demonstrated by previous scholars, SMEs have been critically discussed because they provide lack of proper sustainability disclosure. The fact that the predominant approach of SMEs toward social responsibility is often “sunken” and not “explicit” can drive the lack of disclosure. Furthermore, unstructured communication practices create difficulties in measuring and reporting the sustainability reporting phenomenon in SMEs. The aim of our study is to shed light on the activity of SMEs’ sustainability reporting and disclosure, specifically, by addressing the variables that influence the choice of the guidelines used to prepare sustainability reports.

The research has been carried out by using qualitative and quantitative methodologies. The empirical evidence is based on all the Italian companies, mostly SMEs, that were certified in 2011 as having adopted both environmental (i.e., ISO14001 or EMAS) and social (i.e., SA8000) management systems. A multivariate linear regression model has been developed to address the influence of several variables (i.e., financial performance, size, time after achievement of the certifications, group/conglomerate control, etc.) on the guidelines’ choice for preparing sustainability reports.

Our findings demonstrate that SMEs prefer to use simple guidelines such as those guidelines that are mandatory under management system certifications. However, the sustainability disclosure driven by the adoption of international guidelines may be more complex if the SME is controlled within a group of companies or if a significant amount of time has passed since the certification date. As such, we developed a taxonomy of their different behavioral drivers according to a legitimacy theory approach.

At this stage, our study didn’t focus on the contents’ quality of the disclosure and reporting practices adopted by SMEs, which is obviously a worthwhile and important area for further research. Furthermore, the analysis took into account the impact of a number of easily accessible variables; therefore, it can be extended to investigate the effect on disclosure of other relevant variables (i.e., nature of the board of directors, age, and industrial sector in which the company operates) as well as contexts prevailing in other countries.

The study represents an important contribution for understanding how and why managers might use externally focused disclosure on social and environmental issues to benefit the company’s legitimacy.

Our study provides interesting insights for policy makers who require social or environmental certification when calling for tenders or specific EU contracts, in order to put aside the “brand” or “symbol” and really focus on the disclosed practices.

Previous studies have provided only a few evidence about reporting practices and related influencing features of SMEs’ sustainability actions. As such, the study wishes to make a significant contribution to the existing literature on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) by providing relevant insights about the factors which influence the guidelines used by SMEs in preparing their sustainability reports.

This chapter investigates the perceptions of social audit within the context of the garment companies of Bangladesh. The chapter highlights two recent incidents that claimed the lives of about 1,300 garment workers in Bangladesh. Based on the fact that Western clothing brands use social audits before sourcing their products from Bangladesh, this chapter investigates if any real change happens as a result of the information provided in the social audit reports.

The insights were gathered through conducting personal interviews with managers of social audit firms, corporate managers and various stakeholders of the textile and garment companies of Bangladesh. This chapter used the accountability theory to understand the perceptions of social audit.

The chapter finds that different stakeholders have different perspectives regarding social audits. The high-profile catastrophes within the supply chain garment factories of Bangladesh provided evidence that social audits did not help prevent such catastrophes in a different socio-economic context. The results have revealed stakeholder dissatisfaction with the procedures and content of social audits. It also finds that there is an expectation gap between the preparers and users of social audit reports.

The insights provided in this chapter would benefit garment manufacturers of developing countries and relevant stakeholders to demonstrate more accountability while conducting a social audit.

This is the first known chapter investigating stakeholders’ perceptions of social audit within the context of a developing country. More importantly, it focuses on responsible corporate behaviour in a socially sensitive industry.

The study examines the social and environmental responsibility indicators disclosed by three International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM) corporate mining members in their social and environmental reporting (SER) from 2006 to 2014. To achieve this aim, the author limits the data two years before (i.e. from 2006 to 2007) and six years after (i.e. from 2009 to 2014) the implementation of the Sustainable Development Framework in the mining sector in 2008.

Using the techniques of content analysis and interpretive textual analysis, this study examines 27 social and environmental responsibility reports published between 2006 and 2014 by three ICMM corporate mining members. The study develops a disclosure index based on the earlier work of Hackston and Milne (1996), together with other disclosure items suggested in the extant literature and considered appropriate for this work. The disclosure index for this study comprised six disclosure categories (“employee”, “environment”, “community involvement”, “energy”, “governance” and “general”). In each of the six disclosure categories, only 10 disclosure items were chosen and that results in 60 disclosure items.

A total of 830 out of a maximum of 1,620 social and environmental responsibility indicators, representing 51% (168 employees, 151 environmental, 145 community involvement, 128 energy, 127 governance and 111 general) were identified and examined in company SER. The study showed that the sample companies relied on multiple strategies for managing pragmatic legitimacy and moral legitimacy via disclosures. Such practices raise questions regarding company-specific disclosure policies and their possible links to the quality/quantity of their disclosures. The findings suggest that managers of mining companies may opt for “cherry-picking” and/or capitalise on events for reporting purposes as well as refocus on company-specific issues of priority in their disclosures. While such practices may appear appropriate and/or timely to meet stakeholders’ needs and interests, they may work against the development of comprehensive reports due to the multiple strategies adopted to manage pragmatic and moral legitimacy.

A limitation of this research is that the author relied on self-reported corporate disclosures, as opposed to verifying the activities associated with the claims by the sample mining companies.

The findings from this research will help future social and environmental accounting researchers to operationalise Suchman’s typology of legitimacy in other contexts.

With growing large-scale mining activity, potential social and environmental footprints are obviously far from being socially acceptable. Powerful and legitimacy-conferring stakeholders are likely to disapprove such mining activity and reconsider their support, which may threaten the survival of the mining company and also create a legitimacy threat for the whole mining industry.

This study innovates by focusing on Suchman’s (1995) typology of legitimacy framework to interpret SER in an industry characterised by potential social and environmental footprints – the mining industry.