The state of art of corporate social disclosure before the introduction of non-financial reporting directive: a cross country analysis
ISSN: 1747-1117
Article publication date: 4 December 2018
Issue publication date: 21 June 2019
Abstract
Purpose
According to the Directive 2014/95/EU on non-financial information (NFI), from 2017 onwards, large companies of member states will be required to provide a series of social, environmental and governance disclosures. This paper, focusing on the evaluation of the quality of NFI in the UK and Italy before the implementation of the EU Directive, aims to investigate which factors affect the quality of NFI in the comparison between the UK and Italy.
Design/methodology/approach
To evaluate the “state of the art” of NFI in corporate social disclosure of British and Italian listed companies, a non-financial score is created, based on specific items concerning the requirements of the EU Directive. To this aim, the authors analyzed the corporate disclosures of 343 large listed companies.
Findings
Findings show that the UK is more compliant than Italy. So, regulation could be important to improve NFI in Italy more than in the UK. The results could represent relevant evidence for European policymakers of the action agenda “emphasizing the importance of national and sub-national CSR policies”.
Originality/value
This research represents a preliminary analysis on the EU Directive and on its potential effects. Moreover, this study strengthens the previous literature on the quality of non-financial disclosure.
Keywords
Citation
Venturelli, A., Caputo, F., Leopizzi, R. and Pizzi, S. (2019), "The state of art of corporate social disclosure before the introduction of non-financial reporting directive: a cross country analysis", Social Responsibility Journal, Vol. 15 No. 4, pp. 409-423. https://doi.org/10.1108/SRJ-12-2017-0275
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2018, Emerald Publishing Limited