Corporate Social Responsibility Information in Annual Reports in the EU—A Czech Case Study

Abstract

The commitment of the European Union (EU) to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is projected into EU law about annual reporting by businesses. Since EU member states further develop this framework by their own domestic laws, annual reporting with CSR information is not unified and only partially mandatory in the EU. Do all European businesses report CSR information and what public declaration to society do they provide with it? The two main purposes of this paper are to identify the parameters of this annual reporting duty and to study the CSR information provided by the 10 largest Czech companies in their annual statements for 2013–2017. Based on legislative research and a teleological interpretation, the current EU legislative framework with Czech particularities is presented and, via a case study exploring 50 annual reports, the data about the type, extent and depth of CSR is dynamically and comparatively assessed. It appears that, at the minimum, large Czech businesses satisfy their legal duty and e-report on CSR to a similar extent, but in a dramatically different quality. Employee matters and adherence to international standards are used as a public declaration to society more than the data on environmental protection, while social matters and research and development (R&D) are played down.

The CSR Perception of Front-line Employees of Luxury Fashion Businesses

“…The concept of sustainability emerged in the context of the economic globalization, dominated by more productivity, as well as social and ecological damage (Schüz, 2012). It reflects the value judgments about justice in the distribution and use of resources and rests on three pillars: economic (profit), environmental (planet) and social (people) dimension's continuity (MacGregor Pelikánová, 2019a). The leading force behind this newly launched trend were the United Nations (UN) which issued two milestone doc-uments: (i) the Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development; Report: Our Common Future prepared by the Brundtland Commission, published as the UN Annex to document A/42/427 in 1987 ("Brundtland Report 1987") and (ii) the Resolution made during a historic UN Summit in September 2015 and entitled Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable development ("UN Agenda 2030"), which brought with it the 17 Sustainable Development Goals ("SDGs") and 169 associated targets.…”

“…The leading force behind this newly launched trend were the United Nations (UN) which issued two milestone doc-uments: (i) the Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development; Report: Our Common Future prepared by the Brundtland Commission, published as the UN Annex to document A/42/427 in 1987 ("Brundtland Report 1987") and (ii) the Resolution made during a historic UN Summit in September 2015 and entitled Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable development ("UN Agenda 2030"), which brought with it the 17 Sustainable Development Goals ("SDGs") and 169 associated targets. These two documents are the outcome of International Law and are not per se enforceable vis-à-vis businesses (MacGregor Pelikánová, 2019a).…”

“…The initial focus on sustainability has been progressively paralleled by corporate responsibility concerns (MacGregor Pelikánová, 2019a). Indeed, the original distinction between (i) sustainability in the narrow sense, with rather systematic and visionary features and designed for soft law and self-regulation, and (ii) corporate responsibility, with rather normative and moral features and designed for national law regulation, have converged in Corporate Social Responsibility ("CSR") (Bansal & Song, 2017).…”

Shareholder Engagement for Corporate Governance in the Light of the Harmonization and Transposition

“…The corporate governance is pivotal for the interaction of all stakeholders of the enterprise, especially its top management and shareholders, their engagement as well as for its sustainable competitiveness. Indeed, an effective, efficient and sustainable corporate governance requires an effective, efficient and sustainable shareholder engagement entailing right on profits (dividends), to vote and get information (Jędrzejowska-Schiffauer et al, 2019;MacGregor-Pelikánová, 2019c).…”

Capital Maintenance Evolution using Outputs from Accounting System

“…To assess financial performance and to predict future developments the sources are financial statements (Lovciova, 2017;Kosovska et al, 2017) providing information for executives and financial management of enterprise, which is a priority role of accounting system (Bastincova, 2017). Executives and financial management are considered as internal users of information with an access to comprehensive data beyond the published information required by law (MacGregor Pelikanova, 2019). External users, shareholders and creditors make their decisions only based on published documents, such as annual reports and financial statements.…”