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Non-financial reporting (NFR) is viewed as a major step towards organisational transparency and accountability. While the number of non-financial reports published every year has been growing exponentially over the last two decades, their quality and effectiveness in managing environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance have been questioned. Addressing these concerns, several jurisdictions, including EU Member States, introduced mandatory NFR regimes. However, the evidence on whether such regulation truly translates into enhanced ESG performance remains scarce. This paper aims to fill this gap in the literature by investigating the impact of the EU’s Directive 2014/95/EU (Non-financial Reporting Directive, NFRD) on the ESG scores of Polish companies.

Drawing upon institutional and strategic perspectives on legitimacy theory, the authors test the relationship between the introduction of the NFRD and the ESG scores derived from the Refinitiv database, using a sample of all those companies listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange whose disclosure allows for measuring ESG performance (yielding 171 firm-year observations from 43 companies).

This study’s findings show an improvement of ESG performance following the introduction of the NFRD. The difference-in-differences approach indicates that the improvement is larger for companies that are subject to the legislation when it comes to overall ESG performance, particularly for environmental and social performance. Nonetheless, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, no significant effect is found for performance in the governance dimension.

This study investigates the role of transnational mandatory reporting regulation in the first years of its enactment. The evidence offers insights into the effects of disclosure legislation in the context of an underdeveloped institutional environment.

This conceptual paper aims to investigate the link between open innovation (OI) processes (outside-in, inside-out and coupled) and strategic corporate social responsibility (CSR) focusing on shared value creation. In doing so, it aims at progressing the theory of OI and CSR.

The paper is of theoretical character. It adopts the contribution proposed by CSR (strategic CSR and corporate social innovation) and OI literature and is organized around two research questions: What is the link between strategic CSR and OI processes (outside-in, inside-out and coupled)? How do companies can capture value from their open corporate social innovation processes? Stakeholder theory has been chosen as a theoretical framework for the study.

The paper identifies four themes describing the relationship between strategic CSR and OI: employee engagement, external stakeholder engagement, CSR-driven selective revealing and open approach to corporate social innovation. The analysis of the themes led to the formulation of four propositions serving as building blocks for a conceptual model of open shared value creation process. The model explains bidirectional relationship between strategic CSR and OI processes and presents the mechanisms, in which firm by implementing OI practices to its CSR strategy captures the proportion of value from a value created for its stakeholders.

This is one of the first, if not the first, papers discussing the link between CSR and three OI processes.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of socio-political interactions in determining the topos of sustainability reporting (SR) practice. For this purpose, this study harnesses pragmatic constructivism perspective to identify facts, possibilities, values and communication of SR practice.

This study adopts a systematic literature review approach using a sample of 167 articles from 54 academic journals.

The results of this study indicate that companies in their SR are driven by self-interest, treating disclosure as a mean in itself and neglecting its role in sustainability transition. In the light of the results, this study proposes three main avenues for further research: the interplay of institutional, organizational and individual factors as drivers for transparency; approaches to improve the quality of SR; and (3) sustainability impact of SR.

The past decade has seen a proliferation of literature on the practice of SR. One of the most influential streams in studies on SR has been grounded in socio-political theories with legitimacy, stakeholder and institutional theories on the front. Nevertheless, there is still no systematic and comprehensive overview of this rich literature. This study offers a comprehensive framework which conceptualizes SR as a social construct defined by the interplay between various, often conflicting institutional demands.

Drawing on institutional theory, this study aims to analyse the regulation of executive remuneration as espoused in the United Kingdom (UK) codified corporate governance principles, focussing on sources of advice to decision-makers, the nature of the advice sought and given, and interaction of those involved in the process.

A qualitative research design was used. Data were assembled from interviewing non-executive board/remuneration committee members; institutional investors; external remuneration consultants and internal human resources (HR)/reward specialists. Results were analysed in accordance with the Gioia technique.

Tensions inherent in the interpretation of corporate governance codes are illustrated. Emphasis on independent advice combined with constraints on decision-makers' capacity to navigate the nuances of a complex field and reputational concerns risks standardised instead of bespoke remuneration approaches aligned with corporate contexts.

There is a role for internal HR advisors to add value through their potential to reduce the gap within remuneration committees between institutional contexts and independent decision-making, facilitating more strategic human resource management inspired executive remuneration.

Application of institutional theory indicates the relevance of balancing external with internal sources to secure advice that is horizontally and vertically aligned within an organisation to meet the letter and spirit of corporate governance norms. Extending the explanatory power of institutional theory, care is needed though not to overlook the normative underpinnings of professional advisors' own value sets.

The purpose of this study is to analyse the contributions, major discussions and trends in the literature driving the research agenda in corporate social innovation (CSI). This is done through a systematic review on CSI publications in an open time span. Salient themes and emerging research topics in this literature, as well as research questions and limitations, are identified, culminating in a discussion of what is next for CSI research.

A systematic review was undertaken from academic and grey literature. Results were analysed following a bibliometric and interpretative content analysis.

The study provides novel insights on CSI research by drawing attention to discussions around the consensus on a definition of CSI, its disciplinary origins and the denominations referring to this field. Although CSI struggles to gain independence as a research field, the evidence shows that CSI is a cross-disciplinary concept nourished by multiple disciplines.

Analysis in this paper has implications for research by highlighting the state of scholarship on CSI. Given the use of multiple denominations of CSI, several studies using low diffused denominations could be discarded.

This research contributes to the body of knowledge in the field of CSI by bringing clarity to former discussions and by suggesting how the field can move forward to a more advanced and mature state in research.