Year 2019, Issue 

Date published

29.8.2019

Table of content

  • Emil Nikolov
    CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY: DISCLOSURE OF NON-FINANCIAL INFORMATION
    JEL: M14.
    Keywords: corporate social responsibility, assessment of corporate social responsibility, reporting non-financial information, social report, integrated report, communication on progress.
    Summary: This monograph studies the theoretical fundamentals, including the assessment methods and established structures (frameworks), of reporting the non-financial (social, environmental and management) information. The theoretical study is supported by an empirical study of the extent to which Bulgarian business organisations discl ... ... Introduction 9 CHAPTER ONE. Theoretical foundations of corporate social responsibility 13 1. Essence, characteristics and principles of corporate social responsibility 13 2. Overview of the historical development of corporate social responsibility 23 3. Basic theories (concepts) of corporate social responsibility 32 4. Taxonomy of corporate social responsibility 42 5. Arguments for and against corporate social responsibility 48 6. The evaluation of corporate social responsibility 56 CHAPTER TWO. Reporting non-financial information 70 1. Essence and validation of non-financial reporting 70 2. Positive effects of and barriers to non-financial reporting 78 3. Non-financial reporting structures (frameworks) 92 4. The quality of social reports 103 5. Audit (verification) of social reports 112 CHAPTER THREE. Integrating non-financial reporting in the practices of Bulgarian business organisations 120 1. Methodology of the study 120 2. Disclosure of non-financial information of Bulgarian enterprises by using the structure and guidelines of the Global Reporting Initiative 123 3. Reporting the non-financial information of Bulgarian enterprises by implementing the Communication on Progress 132 4. The Online Directory of the Corporate Register as an opportunity to disseminate non-financial reports 144 5. Reporting non-financial information of the large Bulgarian enterprises 149 6. Opportunities for stimulating the non-financial reporting 160 Conclusion 167 References 171 ABSTRACT This monograph studies the theoretical fundamentals, including the assessment methods and established structures (frameworks), of reporting the non-financial (social, environmental and management) information. The theoretical study is supported by an empirical study of the extent to which Bulgarian business organisations disclose social, environmental and management information by publishing social reports. The three largest databases containing non-financial reports have been examined for this purpose. Specifically, these are as follows: the online directory of non-financial reports, administered by the Corporate Register, the Global Sustainability Reporting Database created and maintained by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and the communiqué database integrated into the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) website. The study includes the 50 largest Bulgarian enterprises, according to their realized sales revenues, from the ranking of Capital 100 (Ê100) for 2018. The aim is to find how many of them disclose non-financial information by publishing social reports. The results of the study show that few Bulgarian business organisations develop and publish social reports using well-established reporting structures (the GRI Sustainability Reporting Framework and the UNGC Communication on Progress). As far as the large Bulgarian enterprises are concerned the results are also negative. Only 8% of them report non-financial information by publishing social reports, while those that are part of larger business groups do so mainly as a general report for the whole group, developed and published by the parent company. However, this approach is not in line with the good practices in the field of non-financial reporting as it hampers the analysis and assessment of the impact (positive and negative) that a particular business has on the economy, society and environment (the three pillars of sustainable development). In this regard, the conclusion that can be drawn is that the reporting of non-financial information has not become an established practice yet for the Bulgarian business organisations, which are still at an early stage in the development of this key element of the overall concept of corporate social responsibility.