Purpose -Motivated by the new European Union Directive 2014/95 on non-financial and diversity information, this paper aims to develop a future research agenda to conduct pragmatic, theory-oriented research into the Directive and corporate sustainability reporting.Design/methodology/approach -Drawing upon the relational dynamics between states, firms and society in regulating non-financial reporting (NFR), this essay frames and analyses the Directive and its grand theories, as unproven theories, by discussing its practical concerns and reviewing the academic literature.Findings -The Directive is an act of policy to legitimise NFR that encompasses two grand theories: improve the comparability of information and enhance corporate accountability. From a pluralist perspective, companies can rest assure that their compliance with the Directive will be perceived as socially desirable, proper and appropriate. However, some of the forces involved in translating the Directive into actionable policies operate contra to the Directive's goals and, instead, act as barriers to its grand theories. In addressing these barriers, a research agenda is proposed that both traces backward to re-examine the foundational theories of the past and looks forward to explore alternative possibilities for achieving these goals.Research limitations/implications -This paper provides researchers with a practical-driven and theory-oriented agenda for future research in light of the rising academic interest in the Directive. Practical implications -The barriers to the Directive's grand theories help policymakers and practitioners to understand the practical concerns about the implementation of the Directive and other mandatory NFR policies. Originality/value -This paper enriches the emerging debate on the Directive and highlights future possibilities for fruitful empirical research by developing a research agenda.

Purpose This paper aims to achieve the following objectives. First, through a longitudinal study, the authors explore the trend of voluntary external assurance of sustainability reports among Italian listed companies from 2008 to 2012. Thus, the authors aim to analyse the content level of the assurance statements and to test whether it is affected by certain corporate variables and by the type of practitioner chosen. Design/methodology/approach A legitimacy theory framework is adopted to investigate the phenomenon of sustainability report assurance services in Italy. The authors developed an assurance statement disclosure index (ASDI) constructed on the basis of the standards ISAE 3000 and AA1000AS. Thus, the authors tested whether the ASDI is affected by certain corporate variables using an ordinary least square (OLS) regression model. To test how each specific item is related to the assurance provider, a contingency table was developed. Findings The results of this paper show many differences in the assurance statements content in particular with reference to the criteria used, conclusive comments and recommendations. The presence of a corporate social responsibility committee and an expert who serves on it is positively related to a higher rank on the ASDI. In contrast, Big4 firms seem to be associated with a lower disclosure rank. Finally, Big4 are positively associated with the indications of the provider’s characteristics and negatively with their conclusive comments and recommendations. Originality/value This paper presents some findings in an area where little evidence exists, that is, the effects of some variables on the quantity of information disclosed in the assurance statements.

Abstract:This study has two main purposes. First, it explores the performance indicators disclosed in the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)-based Sustainability Reports (SRs) produced by the companies of three different countries: Italy, Spain and Greece. Second, it verifies how some corporate variables, country of origin variables and "attributes" of the SRs can explain the disclosure of GRI indicators. To verify the quantity and type of the indicators disclosed, we performed a content analysis of the SRs. We use a regression trees technique to describe how the companies' variables explain a different use of the indicators. The findings show that Spanish companies, on average, disclose the greatest number of indicators. The social indicators related to Labour are those more frequently reported in the SRs of the three countries. The least reported are social indicators related to Human Rights. The results show the central role that assurance, ROA and sector may have in classifying the disclosure level of indicators. The study contributes both theoretical and empirical literature on sustainability indicators. It also sheds further light on the determinants of the disclosure of indicators.

Non-financial reporting is a growing topic, and the adoption of the EU Directive 2014/95/EU on non-financial information (NFI) is increasing the use of this reporting. One of the most distinctive elements of guidelines and standards that are widely used to draw-up reports on NFI is sustainability performance indicators (SPIs). SPIs can provide a significant value-added to non-financial corporate communication, and they are useful tools to support internal decision-making processes. The purpose of this study is to examine the effects produced on SPIs disclosure by the entry into force of the Italian Decree implementing the Directive on NFI. Content analysis method is used to analyze indicators disclosed by Italian companies before and after the adoption of the Decree. Findings show that each category of SPIs was largely used by the companies of our 2012 sample, but a reduction of the quantity of indicators disclosed was documented in 2017. Therefore, after the introduction of mandatory disclosure of NFI, companies seem to focus only on indicators considered more “relevant” according to the Directive. This research represents one of the preliminary analysis on the adoption of the Directive in Italy and on its first effects on NFI reporting practices.

Directive 2014/95/EU requires EU Member States to mandate nonfinancial disclosures for large public interest entities. The adoption of the Legislative Decree 254/2016, transposing into Italian law the EU Directive, has opened up new perspectives for research on the effects produced by regulatory requirements on nonfinancial information (NFI) in the Italian context. This paper aims to examine how the new regulation is influencing the quantity of NFI disclosed by Italian companies concerning sustainability matters required by the Directive. Content analysis is used to verify the sustainability indicators disclosed by Italian companies before and after the implementation of the Decree. A composite indicator of disclosure performance is then constructed using Principal Component Analysis (PCA). The results highlight a generalized reduction of indicators disclosed by companies belonging to the sample. Over the three years analysed, most companies have improved their disclosure ranking. Nevertheless, a comparison among companies having the same ranking showed a decrease in the disclosure index for the majority of them. Despite the growing attention paid by academics to Directive 95/2014/EU and its implementation in Italy, this is one of the few studies that has evaluated the effects of the Decree over three years, considering what happened after the first year of its implementation.