Enhancing the Role and Effectiveness of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Reports: The Missing Element of Content Verification and Integrity Assurance

Abstract

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) reporting by large corporations has witnessed phenomenal growth over the last two decades. The voluntary nature of these disclosures, however, has led to inconsistencies in reporting formats, treatment, and inclusion of various contextual elements, and a lack of robust measures pertaining to the quality and accuracy of the reports' content. Efforts to address these drawbacks such as Global Reporting Initiative and ISO 26000 have proven unsatisfactory due to their primary emphasis on process for creating CSR reports without similar attention on measurement criteria to ensure robust implementation, or verify accuracy of information. This paper attempts to fill this gap in the literature. It uses a new framework-called the CSR-Sustainability Monitor Ò -of analyzing and evaluating the contents of CSR reports in a manner that allows for a single report to be compared with any other single group, and groups of reports based on industry, country-oforigin, and similar other groupings. Using data from the CSR reports of 614 large corporations worldwide, this study analyzes the character and scope of integrity assurance contained in these CSR reports. The analysis is further extended to explore some external factors that would explain variations in the assurance decision and the quality of integrity assurance in these reports.

How market value relates to corporate philanthropy and its assurance. The moderating effect of the business sector

“…Stakeholders, among whom investors are of major importance, often require companies to retain independent, external assurance of their activities (Adams & Evans, 2004;Braam & Peeters, 2018;Sethi, Martell, & Demir, 2017a), thus ensuring quality and compliance with accepted standards (Cnaan, Jones, Dickin, & Salomon, 2011;Luffarelli & Awaysheh, 2018;Martínez-Ferrero & García-Sánchez, 2017). Compliance with standards lends credibility to firms' commitment to social issues (Moratis, 2018;Shafer & Lucianetti, 2018).…”

A Provider’s Approach to the Assurance Market of Sustainability Reports in Spain

“…The methodology could be useful in continuing the analysis from a multi-country perspective. Countries present differences concerning the contents of assurance statements (Sethi et al 2017), so it would be helpful to know whether these differences remain in the procedures. The providers' strategies could also be analysed in greater depth and the traditional classifications of assurance providers (i.e., Big 4/non-Big 4 or auditors/consultants) should be revised.…”

“…Previous literature on assurance quality considers key issues such as the performed procedures, the assuror's independence and experience, the assurance scope and the contents and drafting of the assurance report (O'Dwyer and Owen 2005;Knechel et al 2006;Hodge et al 2009;Gillet 2012;Herda et al 2014). However, the scarce literature on assurance practices and its quality assessment has approached this topic by applying the content analysis methodology to the assurance statements, the only visible part of the process (Deegan et al 2006;Fonseca 2010;Zorio et al 2013;Herda et al 2014;Gürtürk and Hahn 2016;Sethi et al 2017). This approach could be only partly accurate if we consider the great heterogeneity of assurance statements, in both format and content (Perego 2009;Jones et al 2014;Rossi and Tarquinio 2017).…”

Enhancing the Quality of Reporting in Corporate Social Responsibility Guidance Documents: The Roles of ISO 26000, Global Reporting Initiative and CSR‐Sustainability Monitor

“…However, ISO 26000 and GRI fall short of addressing public concerns over the credibility and comparability of these reports due to their primary emphasis on process for creating CSR reports without similar attention on measurement criteria to ensure robust implementation, or verify accuracy of information. 39,40 While standardization requires clearly set mechanisms for effective comparisons of the information in these reports across time as well as among peers, neither of the two frameworks provide any such mechanisms to monitor and assess the extent to which reporting companies live up to their claims regarding how closely they actually followed the procedures outlined in these frameworks in their reporting processes. Nor do these organizations provide any mechanisms to assure the quality of information in these reports but rather rely on firms' self-declared compliance statements.…”