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Sustainable reports are the basic tool used to reflect and communicate stakeholder dialogue. Therefore, sustainability reporting has become a key element for strategic management. Companies' strategies are defined and developed by their boards of directors. This study explores the relationship between sustainability reporting and the existence of at least three women on the board of directors. Our results show that in countries with a higher proportion of boards of directors with at least three women, the levels of CSR reporting are higher. We also find that countries with higher gender equality have more companies with boards of directors with at least three women. We control for other variables that affect differences among countries and differences in CSR reporting as found in previous studies: cultural differences, law enforcement, GDP, industry and regulation. Our paper contributes to the literature by studying the relationship between board gender composition and CSR reporting. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.

This article analyses the determinants associated with the use of the Integrated Report (IR) as a corporate reporting model for sustainability information. IRs provide information regarding the use and interdependence of different company resources. The previous literature has identified determinants behind the presentation of IRs at the country level (legal system, investor protection, economic development, cultural characteristics) as well as at the company level (size, industry, verification of the sustainability report). Our work contributes to the literature by using a novel statistical approach that addresses the likelihood of the non-independence of data: companies in the same country are more similar to one another than are companies from different countries. Our results confirm significant inter-country variance, which may be partially explained by the existence of specific regulations and the individualism vs. collectivism dimension. Although we confirm the effect of company-level determinants, our results do not support the role of specific variables tested as determinants.

The purpose of this paper is to compare the quality of the sustainability information issued following the three most common reporting models: annual report (addressed to shareholders), sustainability report (addressed to stakeholders), and integrated report (addressed to shareholders). To this aim, we create a quality index based on previous literature, analyzing the content of the sustainability information disclosed by Spanish listed companies during the years 2013 to 2015. We find that companies issuing sustainability reports or integrated reports provide higher quality information than companies including their sustainability information within the annual report. We also find that sustainability reports are issued with higher quality than integrated reports. Both findings indicate that companies in Spain are engaged in a dialogue with all stakeholders, not only shareholders. Our results offer insights on the need to improve the framework of the integrated report in order to achieve the objectives of the International Integrated Reporting Council and to get a speed up in the adoption of this new reporting tool.

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Using generalised linear mixed models as a statistical tool, this paper analyses the factors that explain the decision of a company to assure their sustainability report and of the choice of a Big 4 auditor as assuror. Specifically, we investigate the variables that affect the two dependent variables, existence of assurance and the profile of the assuror, at two different levels: the characteristics of the reporting company, and the country in which the company is located. Previous literature has explained this relationship as the result of linear regression models, considering only the fixed effects of the factors. Taking into account random effects, we are able to arrive at more precise conclusions on the effect of country (legal tradition and European membership) and company variables (size, public or non-public, industry and integrated reporting), on the existence of assurance and the profile of the assuror.

This paper analyzes whether effective boards of directors in addressing shareholder interests also prove to be effective in guaranteeing the interests of the rest of the firm's stakeholders. We measure board effectiveness based on the shareholder perspective, and test whether it is valid for the stakeholder perspective. The novelty of this paper precisely lies in its approach, given that it considers both perspectives of corporate governance at a time. Using the transparency of sustainability reports as a proxy for the stakeholder perspective in an international sample of 2366 companies, the paper shows that effective boards are more likely to address the interests of both the shareholders and the rest of the firm's stakeholders. Furthermore, we propose a measure of board effectiveness by gathering several board characteristics. Our results contribute to research on corporate governance and corporate social responsibility reporting, and it has implications for policy makers.

The assurance of sustainability reports is a relatively new service offered by different providers such as accounting firms and consultants. The percentage of sustainability reports assured and the weight of the four largest accounting firms (Deloitte, EY, KPMG and PWC) in this new market are evolving in time. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to a better understanding of the role each one of the four major accounting firms (Big4) play in this assurance market. Using a generalized linear mixed model in an international sample, our results confirm that each Big4 accounting firm leverages its network of financial audit clients to enter the sustainability assurance market. Despite the global context in which Big4 operate, the choice of a specific Big4 as assurance provider depends on country level factors. We also find significant differences in the industry distribution for each major accounting firm. These results suggest a potential competitive advantage for the Big4 to enter the sustainability assurance market when they are also auditors of the financial statements. Our findings suggest that each Big4 does not act uniquely at a global level when they assure sustainability reports as there are characteristics in the geographical environment which affect this market. Additionally, the differences in market share of each Big4 by industry, may enforce the idea of the connection between financial auditor (a market highly specialized by industry) and the sustainability assuror.