Abstract
“Integrated reporting ” has gained prominence during the last few years. Investors have required more information also about how sustainability issues and initiatives are expected to contribute to the long-term growth strategy of a business. This communication, which should be provided by top management, leads toward the convergence of sustainability and financial reporting into a single “narrative.” Both financial reporting and non-financial reporting together provide all stakeholders with a comprehensive view of the position and performance of a company. This process has also been encouraged by some European regulations. However, despite these, social and environmental information is still disclosed differently in consolidated annual reports and social–environmental reports. The present work focuses on such differences of content. The analysis regards both (mandatory) consolidated annual reports and (voluntary) stand-alone social–environmental reports prepared by Italian-listed corporate groups for two different accounting periods (both before and after the implementation of Directive 2003/51/EC). The final results show relevant and persistent differences in the disclosure of environmental and employee matters between financial and sustainability reporting.
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Notes
- 1.
The Italian Civil Code does not provide any constraints. The National Board of Chartered Accountants (CNDCEC 2009a, b) addressed this issue and tried to provide some indication about the disclosure of environmental and employee information. The same was done by the International Accounting Standard Board (IASB). This board provided a framework for the presentation of management commentary reporting. It reflects a precise decision: the standardization of such reporting could reduce its informative power, so it must be avoided.
- 2.
In previous work (Costa and Agostini 2016), the regression model was introduced considering only the variable called regulation. Here, the analysis is mainly focused on other new independent variables called discltype and page.
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Agostini, M., Costa, E. (2018). Financial and Sustainability Reporting: An Empirical Investigation of Their Relationship in the Italian Context. In: Gal, G., Akisik, O., Wooldridge, W. (eds) Sustainability and Social Responsibility: Regulation and Reporting. Accounting, Finance, Sustainability, Governance & Fraud: Theory and Application. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-4502-8_17
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