There is a rising trend among companies to publish their sustainability or corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports. Assurance of these reports is a valuable voluntary tool to provide them with higher credibility. Nonetheless, the quality of assurance reports differs in practice and the objective of this paper is to provide evidence in this new area of research. Indeed, we are pioneers in developing an index to measure the quality of assurance reports. We choose the Spanish setting because it is the worldwide leading country as regards CSR reporting (KPMG, 2011; Sierra et al., 2012). We have found evidence on the determinants for CSR reporting posited by existing literature that have an impact on (a) the decision of companies to publish their CSR reports, (b) the decision to assure the CSR report or not and (c) the decision to hire the assurance services from an auditor or a consultant and the subsequent quality of the assurance report. Last but not least, our results from a sample of 161 CSR assurance reports evidence that assurance reports are of fairly acceptable quality, according to the index proposed. Furthermore, the value of the quality index is significantly higher if the assurance services are provided by an auditor (as opposed to a consultant) and if the CSR reporting company is larger. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.
Spain is the world's leading country as regards corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting (KPMG, 2011). In addition, Spain is taking new initiatives with regard to environmental policy, sustainable development, and stakeholder engagement in accordance with Law 2/2011.This is why we choose Spain as the setting to analyze whether the determinants for external assurance posited by existing literature (industry, size, profitability, leverage) have an impact on the decision of companies to assure their CSR reports. Our study is a pioneer in the sense that it investigates the possible links between the auditor of the annual report and the provider of assurance. The results of this study indicate that assurance of CSR reporting depends on the size, leverage, and profitability of the company. We find that the sustainability assurance market is dominated by the Big‐4 firms, who develop different strategies in this field. Finally, we find that the decision to hire an auditor to perform sustainability assurance sometimes depends on the industry. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to shed some light on the effect of the current financial crisis on corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting and CSR assurance strategies that companies disclose online to stakeholders, by dividing the time horizon into two periods, before 2008 and from 2008. Design/methodology/approach – The sample includes Spanish listed companies, differentiating CSR reporters from non CSR-reporters. Also distinguished in the CSR-reporters sample, are those companies that assure the CSR report from those that do not. The authors contrast whether there is a trend as regards CSR reporting and CSR assurance, depending on whether the crisis has already begun or not. Next the authors focus on companies that change their CSR reporting strategy or change their CSR assurance strategy and see if there is an impact on performance (both from an accounting and from a market perspective). Findings – Even though the financial crisis has raised the question whether assurance of CSR reports could be a threat for business, bearing in mind the generalized initiatives to cut costs, the results show that the number of CSR reports increased significantly with the crisis (indeed, significant differences were found in ROE from CSR adopters to CSR discontinuing companies). Nonetheless, no significant impact was found regarding the changes in assurance strategy, even though there are no grounds to expect cuts in this area because the absolute number of assured reports is increasing, yet not significantly. Practical implications – In spite of the current financial crisis, this study identifies a business in a stage of expansion, not only CSR reporting but also assurance of CSR reports, and confirms the stability in time of the CSR assurance decision by companies as an added-value strategy to CSR reporting. There seems to be an investment view of CSR reporting and CSR assurance, which can help companies differentiate their products or services from the competition and reinforce stakeholders ' trust. Originality/value – This is a pioneering study on the actual effects that the financial crisis has had on CSR reporting and assurance strategies.
Para dar mayor credibilidad a la información publicada en los informes de responsabilidad social corporativa se asigna a estos de un proceso de aseguramiento por parte de un experto externo. Esta investigación se basa en 1.021 observaciones de 12 países de Latinoamérica durante los años 2006-2010. A la vista de los resultados, podemos concluir que Latinoamérica es una región donde cada vez hay un mayor compromiso con la sostenibilidad. Además, los resultados señalan que la decisión de otorgar mayor credibilidad a las políticas sostenibles por medio del aseguramiento depende del tamaño de la empresa, del sector al que pertenece y del país donde se encuentre.
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