The organization may communicate its engagement in sustainability and may presents results achieved in this field by creating and publishing corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports. Today, we can observe a growing number of companies issuing such reports as a part of their annual reports or as stand-alone CSR reports. Despite the increase in the number of such reports their quality is different. CSR reports do not always provide complete data that readers desire, which in turn intensifies the problem with the evaluation and comparison of the organization’s results achieved in this scope. Differences also occur between reporting models used in different EU countries caused by, inter alia, differently applied EU legislation on the disclosure of non-financial information in different Member States. This paper is one of the first attempts to perform a quantitative and qualitative analysis of corporate sustainability reporting practices in several European Union countries. The purpose of this article is to present the current state of CSR reporting practices in selected EU Member States and identify the differences in the quality and level of this kind of practices, taking into account the mandatory and voluntary model of disclosure. The study included separate CSR reports as well as annual reports with CSR sections and integrated reports published in 2012 in six selected EU Member States. The authors have used a specific evaluation tool in the examination of the individual reports. The assessment questionnaire consists of seventeen criteria grouped into two categories (relevance and credibility of information). In order to assess the quality of examined reports, the authors aggregated the indicators related with the reporting practices. The findings show that the quality level of the studied reports is generally low. Referring to its components, the relevance of the information provided in the assessed reports is at the higher level than its credibility. The study also indicates that the legal obligation of CSR data disclosure has a positive effect on the quality of CSR reports.

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Abstract:Companies around the world more often issue publicly available reports to disclose how responsibly they conduct their business. The practices of corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting are more popular in western part of Europe then in Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries and empirical studies related to these practices in the region are sporadic and fragmented. The Visegrad Group countries have undergone tremendous changes in political, environmental and social area during the last twenty years. The CSR concept in these countries is relatively new but is rapidly spreading, in particular as part of their integration with the European Union, as well as under the influence of transnational corporations (TNCs) and foreign investors. Therefore, acquisition of knowledge, which presents the functioning of CSR reporting practices in the region seems to be of interest to both the scientific community and enterprises themselves. An important part of the analysis conducted in the study was the assessment of quality of CSR reports issued in this region. The quality indicator of the studied reports was based on seventeen criteria related to relevance and credibility of disclosed information. The findings indicate that CSR reporting practices are not widespread among V4 countries and suggest some area of improvements. Furthermore, the achieved results confirm the existence of a relationship between two factors (external verification of a report and usage of the GRI guidelines when developing a report) and the level of quality of the CSR report.

Reporting of corporate social responsibility (CSR) is nowadays becoming an important and rapidly growing phenomenon in the world. The current increase in the number of companies reporting on CSR data is caused by many different factors, including stakeholder pressures, the economic crisis, growing awareness of sustainability issues as well as the appearance of more and more new reporting requirements initiated by national governments and stock exchanges. Despite the growing popularity of CSR reporting, it is still only a small percentage of companies that decide to regularly disclose their data on CSR activities. Therefore, the question is raised as to what factors influence the development of CSR reporting practices. The paper presents the results of the research, which aimed to answer the above question, highlighting especially the role of government in the process. The study was carried out using two web-based surveys. The questionnaires were distributed to respondents from different European Union member states. The first group of respondents consisted of specialists, consultants, researchers and academics specializing in the field of CSR reporting-'experts'and the second group consisted of CSR managers, employees involved in developing CSR reports-'preparers'. The results suggest that report 'preparers' and external 'experts' have different views on some aspects, e.g., reasons to issue a CSR report. The survey also shows that there is a need for the greater participation of government in the development of sustainability reporting practices.

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