Desperately Seeking a Standard Metric for Corporate Social Performance
Non-Financial Disclosure and Integrated Reporting: Practices and Critical Issues
ISBN: 978-1-83867-964-4, eISBN: 978-1-83867-963-7
Publication date: 12 March 2020
Abstract
Despite all the attempts developed so far to measure corporate social performance in the last decades, a standard metric for it is still missing. In this work, the author tries to understand why is this the case. To do so, the author has reviewed 69 relevant metrics developed in the literature since the 1970s until today, covering approaches based on social, reputational, and environmental ratings, as well as several others constructed ad hoc by reputated scholars. The author analyzes each of them through a double optics, checking if they meet the minimum requirements to be considered standard and truly social. The research reveals that the main factor that prevents such a standard is the lack of truly social orientation of the existing metrics.
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Acknowledgements
Acknowledgments
The author wishes to thank Prof. Sandra Waddock (Boston College), Prof. Jacob Brower (Queens University), and Prof. Juan Mascareñas (Universidad Complutense de Madrid) for their help and support in the development of this research.
Citation
Masip, M. (2020), "Desperately Seeking a Standard Metric for Corporate Social Performance", Songini, L., Pistoni, A., Baret, P. and Kunc, M.H. (Ed.) Non-Financial Disclosure and Integrated Reporting: Practices and Critical Issues (Studies in Managerial and Financial Accounting, Vol. 34), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 9-35. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1479-351220200000034003
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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