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Article
Publication date: 12 July 2021

Rosa Lombardi, Antonietta Cosentino, Alessandro Sura and Michele Galeotti

This paper aims to examine the European Union (EU) 95/2014 Directive’s impact on large public companies. It chose Italy as a pivotal country that made non-financial information…

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Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to examine the European Union (EU) 95/2014 Directive’s impact on large public companies. It chose Italy as a pivotal country that made non-financial information assurance mandatory, going beyond the EU Directive’s original requirements. Specifically, it investigates how the UE Directive fosters institutionalisation of the non-financial reporting (NFR) process in organisations.

Design/methodology/approach

Two large public companies in Italy are used as case studies. Data are gathered from annual and integrated reports, institutional websites and semi-structured interviews with the managers and employees involved in different organisational positions. The authors adopted the neo-institutional theory as a theoretical lens to identify the organisations’ response to the (external) institutional pressures influencing corporate reporting practices.

Findings

The findings demonstrate how the EU Directive fostered changes to large public companies’ reporting practices and external pressures contributed to influencing changes to internal organisational practices in terms of new internal processes, procedures and structures. These changes are motivated by the companies’ need to guarantee reliable information to be produced in their non-financial reports.

Practical implications

This paper helps academics and policymakers to advance NFR practices by understanding regulatory factors that can foster changes in the internal reporting process and responsibility within organisations.

Originality/value

The findings provide some empirical insights to foster reflections on the EU Directive’s effectiveness in changing reporting practices. This paper contributes to enriching the literature on institutional theory in shaping mandatory non-financial disclosure by identifying the institutional pressures influencing the effectiveness of regulations to change NFR practices.

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Article
Publication date: 8 September 2021

Rosa Lombardi, Federico Schimperna, Paola Paoloni and Michele Galeotti

This paper investigates the quality and quantity of climate-related information disclosed by public interest entities (PIEs) in the non-financial disclosure scenario. Thus, this…

2279

Abstract

Purpose

This paper investigates the quality and quantity of climate-related information disclosed by public interest entities (PIEs) in the non-financial disclosure scenario. Thus, this paper aims at drafting the state of the art on what is climate-related information disclosed by PIEs in the changing EU non-financial regulation assuming the Italian scenario and the industrial industry as significant in achieving the research aims.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors used the content analysis composing the sample of 34 large listed companies (i.e. PIEs) belonging to the industrial sector in Italy. The authors choose the Italian PIEs’ sustainability reports published in 2019 after the adoption of the EU directive and its guidelines. The authors adopted a coding and classification system, investigating the climate-related information through a systematic, objective and reliable method. The authors defined 99 indicators along the structure of the European Commission's guidelines and the indicator of disclosure, climate-related information indicator (CII). The framework mainly derives from the corporate disclosure theory and legitimacy and stakeholders' theories.

Findings

The results show the lack of several required climate-related information or a not in-depth presentation of information. Thus, findings are interesting in emphasizing that the current climate-related disclosure is at an early stage in complying with the European Commission's guidelines. Additionally, the findings enlarge previous theories on corporate disclosure, proposing new insights in the light of the recent interest in climate-related information.

Research limitations/implications

Evidence contributes to extending the existing literature, drafting the state of the art of what is the quality and the quantity of the climate-related information in the corporate disclosure in the European scenario.

Practical implications

This paper is directed to propose the state of the climate-related disclosure following the EU directive guidelines, proposing some evidence to support the path toward the integrations of information by several parts (e.g. companies, regulators and so on).

Originality/value

The paper is a useful baseline for academics, practitioners, policy-makers and regulators in understanding actions to adopt in the climate-related disclosure and what could be the impact of forthcoming regulations in the field, also having some metrics (e.g. score value of disclosure, the indicator of climate-related information disclosure – CII).

Details

Journal of Applied Accounting Research, vol. 23 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0967-5426

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