Voluntary compliance with sustainability reporting quidelines
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2018-08-24
Language
en
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Abstract
The study explored the effect of corporate social responsibility performance (CSRP), listing status and stakeholder-orientation in relation to voluntary compliance with sustainability reporting guidelines
(SRG) and subsequently external assurance. Compliance and assurance should increase stakeholders’ confidence in credibility of the sustainability information provided. Probit analysis was used to test a sample of 1472 firms from 35 European countries that disclosed sustainability reports in 2016. In comparison to companies with superior CSRP, firms with inferior CSRP have a significant higher chance to comply with SRG to cover and manage bad CSRP. However, firms with inferior CSRP are not likely to assure their sustainability reports. Third-party assurance contains the risk of exposing inferior CSRP. The analysis supports that listing status has no significant influence on compliance with SRG and external assurance. Compliance with SRG is not mandatory and this implies that public firms are not required to adopt more extensive sustainability disclosure requirements than private firms. This study also indicates that firms located in stakeholder-orientated countries are more likely to comply with SRG than firms located in shareholder-oriented countries as part of strategically managing stakeholder relationships. This thesis discusses these findings and their implications.
Keywords:
Compliance; sustainability reporting guidelines; Global Reporting Initiative; corporate social responsibility performance; stakeholder orientation; listing status; sustainability reports;
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Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen