scholarly journals CSR REPORTING AS A PRODUCT OF SOCIAL ACCOUNTING

Author(s):  
Grażyna Michalczuk ◽  
Urszula Konarzewska

The development of the concept of corporate social responsibility has become the new and extremely important challenge for accounting. It is necessary that its methods and solutions allow for reflect newer and newer information needs. Because of its systemic character, accounting has to evolve to be able to constitute a basic information system. The development of social accounting is a welcome direction in this regard. It aims to identify measure and present the social and environmental issues related to the functioning of company. The CSR report is a tool for providing information related to corporate social responsibility. It shows the influence of company’s activity on various group of stakeholders, by ensuring detailed data about management regarding aspects such as ethics, ecology, diversity in the workplace and community involvement. Instead of preparing corporate social responsibility reports some companies publish integrated reports which present in one document both financial and social issues in a holistic manner. The aim of the article is to present the problem of CSR reporting within the context of social accounting. The main subject of researches is the evaluation of trends associated with the publishing social reports in the national and international context as well as an analysis of the content of reports dealing with corporate social responsibility prepared by selected companies operating in Poland. The article is based on the analysis of Polish and English literature, selected studies and databases connected with the practice of CSR reporting as well as the reports prepared by companies covered by the survey. Results of the research lead to the conclusion that social reporting is a rapidly growing field in both national and international context. This is reflected by the number of reports dealing with corporate social responsibility submitted by companies to a databases connected with the practice of Corporate Social Responsibility reporting. However, the analysis of the content of this type of reports showed that comparison of data contained within documents prepared by individual companies may pose a problem.

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (8) ◽  
pp. 1191-1214
Author(s):  
Łukasz Matuszak ◽  
Ewa Różańska

Purpose Based on a set of complementary theories, namely, the legitimacy, stakeholder and signaling theories, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the visibility of corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosures on bank websites. In particular, we explored the accessibility, placement, reporting format, extent and content of online CSR information. This paper also examined the effect of size, being listed, ownership structure and the internationalization of banks on online CSR reporting. Design/methodology/approach A sample consisting of 20 banks was used where the data were manually collected from the websites of various banks during the fourth quarter of 2017. Three reporting formats were explored: information posted directly on the website, information contained in a separate CSR report and information within a management commentary or annual report or integrated report. Content analysis was used to measure the level of online CSR disclosures in four sub-dimensions: environment, human resources, products and customers and community involvement. The sample was grouped according to the criteria of size, being listed, ownership structure and internationality. Non-parametric statistics were used to analyze some factors that influence CSR disclosure, namely, size, public ownership, internationalization and foreign ownership. Findings The results indicate that accessibility to CSR information is relatively good. The placement of CSR information on websites varies among banks. Moreover, community involvement was the most disclosed dimension on the banks’ websites. There was a lack of disclosure on items regarding the environment. Furthermore, the findings of this paper showed that significant determinants for explaining online CSR disclosure level were size and being listed. Originality/value This study contributes to the literature by examining the online CSR disclosure practices of banks from an emerging market with a different socio-economic context and regulations compared to the developed market.


2015 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hongjoo Woo ◽  
Byoungho Jin

Purpose – Corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication is a strategy to address companies’ goodwill to the society. Based on the institutional theory suggesting the influence of environmental factors of companies’ country-of-origins on their marketing practices, the purpose of this paper is to explore and compare the CSR communication practices of apparel firms from different countries. Design/methodology/approach – As a case study approach, this study investigates six apparel firms’ CSR communication disclosures on the official websites using a content analysis method and the Global Reporting Initiative’s categorial CSR reporting guidelines. Findings – Findings revealed that the six firms’ CSR communication adoption levels and focusses varied; the USA firms largely focussed on labor issues, while the European firms focussed on environmental issues and the Asian firms centered on social issues. Research limitations/implications – Although this study has limitations that pertain to case studies in general, this study provides academic contributions to the literature and managerial implications about different CSR focusses and communication activities across countries. Originality/value – CSR is especially important for the apparel business that highly involves social issues such as labor-intensive production. However, limited research showed how apparel firms are actually communicating CSR. This study was one of the early attempts on this topic.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rong Wang ◽  
Katherine R. Cooper

PurposeCSR reporting is an institutionalized practice. However, institutionalization has been primarily examined in the context of limited social issues and largely restricted to the presence of CSR communication. The purpose of this paper is to introduce a framework to explore how institutional and organizational factors shape CSR programming in response to an emerging social issue: the global refugee crisis.Design/methodology/approachThe authors collected corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports from Global 500 Fortune corporations between 2012 and 2017. This study uses content coding and inferential analysis to examine how industry type, headquarters location, and partnership resources are related to programming in the refugee relief efforts.FindingsThe results reveal distinctive patterns from the technology sector and European corporations, with no clear patterns identified among other corporations. The findings indicate that although CSR is an institutionalized practice, CSR program reporting offers fewer insights as to how institutionalization occurs.Research limitations/implicationsResults suggest a preliminary framework for understanding how CSR programming becomes institutionalized and provide implications for how corporations may address emerging social issues.Originality/valueThis study applies an institutional, communicative approach to the context of the recent global refugee crisis, which contributes to theory development through the examination of an emerging social issue. It also extends prior research on the institutionalization of CSR by focusing on programming in response to an emerging social issue over time and suggests the limits of prior claims of institutionalized practices.


2013 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 237-249 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mahesh Joshi ◽  
Jasvinder Sidhu ◽  
Monika Kansal

The purpose of this paper is to examine corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting by the BSE TECk Sector in the developing economy of India. Using content analysis, this study analyses the disclosures of corporate social responsibility elements by the BSE TECk Sector in the annual reports. CSR disclosures are analysed in context of sources, nature and the item of information.The findings of the study advice that all the companies in the BSE TECk index disclose social issues in their annual reports. Human resources related issues have found greater attention in annual report of the sample companies and less attention has been provided to ethical issues. The study highlights that it is important for the corporate sector to disclose CSR related matters as part of their overall corporate and business performance reporting model. The paper also provides some practical implications about reporting of socially responsible activities for knowledge based companies.


MedienJournal ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-50
Author(s):  
Maria Gruber

Corporate Social Responsibility reporting has grown increasingly in importance for companies in terms of portraying themselves as good corporate citizens. However, when confronted with a major corporate crisis that evoked an extensive loss in stakeholders’ trust, it remained unclear, how to further deal with the need for CSR communication without presenting oneself as exceedingly hypocritical. In the course of this study, the questions of how and to what extent crises cause change in a corporation’s CSR rhetoric were addressed. Therefore, the utilization of the rhetorical dimensions of logos, ethos, pathos, cosmos and autopoiesis as well as the amount of negative disclosure in the CSR reports of the world’s leading automobile companies (Toyota, General Motors, Volkswagen) were analyzed, one year before and one year after they had maneuvered themselves into a corporate crisis. The rhetorical analysis revealed that the distinctive context of each case (including the corporations’ responsibility for the crisis) dictated the rhetorical adjustments of the CSR reporting after the crisis. Moreover, it could be shown, that when reporting on the crisis cause itself, corporations tend to apply the dimension of ethos more frequently to counter the audience’s potential perception of their hypocrisy.


2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 56-66
Author(s):  
Anupam Singh ◽  
Dr. Priyanka Verma

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) earlier applied as corporate philanthropy and has been in practice in India since ages. However, philanthropy in globalised and modern India does not solve the purpose in quantity and quality. Clause 135 of Company Act 2013 created huge hue and cry among the business community in India. As per clause 135 of the Companies Act, 2013, Every company with an annual turnover of 1,000 crore INR ($161 million) and more, or a net worth of 500 crore INR ($80 million) and more, or a net profit as low as five crore INR ($800,000) and more have to spend at least 2% of their average net profit over the previous three years on CSR activities. With the introduction of new Company act 2013 India became the first country in the world to have legislation for compulsory CSR spending. The paper aims at analyzing the motive of making CSR spending mandatory and it also attempts to explain the concept of CSR in the present Indian scenario, the social issues addressed by the Indian corporations, and methodologies adopted by them to address those issues.


Author(s):  
Yuming Zhang ◽  
Fan Yang

Companies use corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosures to communicate their social and environmental policies, practices, and performance to stakeholders. Although the determinants and outcomes of CSR activities are well understood, we know little about how companies use CSR communication to manage a crisis. The few relevant CSR studies have focused on the pressure on corporations exerted by governments, customers, the media, or the public. Although investors have a significant influence on firm value, this stakeholder group has been neglected in research on CSR disclosure. Grounded in legitimacy theory and agency theory, this study uses a sample of Chinese public companies listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange to investigate CSR disclosure in response to social media criticism posted by investors. The empirical findings show that investors’ social media criticism not only motivates companies to disclose their CSR activities but also increases the substantiveness of their CSR reports, demonstrating that companies’ CSR communication in response to a crisis is substantive rather than merely symbolic. We also find that the impact of social media criticism on CSR disclosure is heterogeneous. Non-state-owned enterprises, companies in regions with high levels of environmental regulations, and companies in regions with local government concern about social issues are most likely to disclose CSR information and report substantive CSR activities. We provide an in-depth analysis of corporate CSR strategies for crisis management and show that crises initiated by investors on social media provide opportunities for corporations to improve their CSR engagement.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (15) ◽  
pp. 8658
Author(s):  
Vojko Potocan

This study examined the importance of technologies in advancing modern organizations’ corporate social responsibility (CSR). Drawing upon environmentalist and technological theories, we analyzed the shift from the traditional development of technology to the development of sustainable technologies for the further sustainable advancement of organizations. Technology has decisively influenced the development of humankind, but its research has traditionally excluded sustainable development issues. Newer technological visions have addressed the incorporation of technologies in all industries more comprehensively to solve social issues related to environmental protection and sustainable economic development. Such an orientation is followed by several conceptual solutions, such as the sustainable use of traditional technologies, development of sustainable technologies, and interdisciplinary treatment of sustainable technology to extend the CSR model. The results of our study have theoretical implications, highlighting the effects of technological development and new technologies on the course of further societal sustainable development. Practical implications include extending CSR’s Triple Bottom model with a technological dimension to improve organizations’ further sustainable operating and behavior.


2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 167-191 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Marquis ◽  
Juelin Yin ◽  
Dongning Yang

ABSTRACTDespite the prevalence of global diffusion, little is known about the processes by which international practices are adopted and adapted within organizations around the world. Through our qualitative research on the introduction of corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting at two leading Chinese companies, we identify a unique set of political mechanisms that we labelstate-mediated globalization, whereby powerful nation-state actors influence the ways in which corporations adopt and adapt global norms and practices. We find that businesses’ needs for political legitimacy from a key stakeholder, in this case the government, leads them to deviate systematically from the global practice in bothformandcontent. These intentional practice adaptations are then legitimized by the government to createinternationalization toolsandlocalized standardsto aid adoption by other organizations. Our findings illustrate previously unidentified mechanisms by which powerful stakeholders such as the Chinese government may mediate, and thereby direct, the ways in which corporations adopt and adapt global CSR practices. Contributions to understanding the political processes of institutional translation in the context of globalization are discussed.


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