Corporate social responsibility strategies and accountability in theUKand Germany: Disclosure of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues in sustainability reports

Abstract

Over the last decades there has been an increasing demand for transparency in the business sector. Companies produce corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports using standards like the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) standard. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people are confronted with discrimination in their professional life. The aim of this paper is to provide an overview on how LGBT issues are integrated into the CSR framework in the UK and Germany. 385 reports from 2017 were analyzed and rated with a scoring system. The key findings are that LGBT issues are not predominant in the CSR reports of either country. However, the disclosure of LGBT policies is significantly higher in the UK than in Germany. British organizations largely do not follow sustainability standards, whereas in Germany most organizations report using CSR standards. Moreover, the disclosure of LGBT issues varies on the basis of the organization size and the industrial sector.

Does board gender diversity improve the welfare of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender employees?

“…Variable global financial crisis (GFC) is positive and significant in Models 6 and 7. This supports our expectation that firms pay more attention to LGBT‐supportive policy during economic difficulty as such policy improves employee satisfaction and loyalty (Kyaw, Chindasombatcharoen, et al, 2021) while the firm gains reputation and legitimacy (Parizek & Evangelinos, 2021). Even after controlling for those motives, the effect of female directors remains positive as indicated by the positive and significant variable percentage of female director.…”

“…Specifically, this paper focuses on the employee group that is gaining increasing attention in the world—lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) employees. Although companies increasingly pay more attention to policies against discrimination (Birindelli et al, 2019; Ciocirlan & Pettersson, 2011; Parizek & Evangelinos, 2021), especially on the basis of sexuality (Fontana, 2020; Sinicropi & Cortese, 2020), there is yet more to be done. As female directors bring their personality traits to the boardroom, which endows the board, gender diverse boards are, thus, better equipped to deliberate on issues that are considered unpalatable or, in some cases, overlooked by all‐male boards.…”

Stakeholder engagement and firms' innovation: Evidence from LGBT‐supportive policies

“…Jauhari and Singh (2013) found that employees' perception of the corporation's commitment to diversity had positive impact on employees' commitment to the organization. An organization's commitment to the welfare of its employees is especially paramount in the case of LGBT employees (Fontana, 2020; Parizek & Evangelinos, 2021). Besides, Benkhoff (1997) find in bank branches that employee commitment has positive effect on the financial success of the branch.…”

“…Thus, both the relevance and exclusion requirements for an instrumental variable should be satisfied. The second instrument is chosen based on the notion that SOD is an element of CSR (Kyaw et al, 2021; Parizek & Evangelinos, 2021). Thus, firms that are generally geared towards CSR will be more inclined to implement SOD policies, yet there is no particular reason to believe that CSR would affect R&D expenditures.…”

“…The stakeholder group that is directly related to the outcomes of R&D activities is the employees. One emerging approach to engage in such responsibilities is through adoption of inclusive corporate policies such as the LGBT‐supportive policies (Fontana, 2020; Kyaw et al, 2021; Parizek & Evangelinos, 2021). Inclusive policies such as those that explicitly mitigate anti‐discrimination in the workplace based on sexual orientation can lift the morale and commitment of employees to the organization.…”