Abstract
Smaller companies’ understanding of and attitude toward corporate social responsibility (CSR), both in terms of actions and disclosure, is distinct from that of other organizations, including large public interest entities (PIEs) that dominate the existing literature in the field. In this study, we examine the interdependencies between non-large PIEs’ CSR practices and disclosures with the use of the organizational hypocrisy concept as a theoretical lens. Our sample consists of 111 companies operating in Poland and pursuing 646 CSR-related practices in 2017. We perform content analysis of their websites using the disclosure index to assess the extent of their CSR disclosures. The total number of observations equals 1227. Both practices and disclosures are analyzed according to ISO 26000 standards. The relationship between the sample companies’ CSR talk and actions is analyzed by means of the Pearson coefficient. Our findings suggest that CSR practices and disclosures of non-large PIEs are loosely coupled. For the whole sample and for the non-SMEs (small and medium sized entities) subsample, the strongest association between the two was observed as regards the organizational governance area. As far as the SMEs are concerned, the statistically significant association between their CSR reporting and actions was identified for the environmental area. Our study contributes to the CSR literature, as it provides new insights into the relation between voluntary CSR talk and actions of non-large PIEs operating in a relatively unexplored setting.
Highlights
The Directive 2014/95/EU has changed the landscape of non-financial reporting in Europe
The corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices included in the report are classified into the following seven areas according to the ISO 26000 standard: (1) Organizational governance, (2) human rights, (3) labor practices, (4) environment, (5) fair operating practices, (6) consumer issues, and (7) community involvement and development
The most often reported practices were those related to community involvement and development (35.8% of all reported to the Responsible Business Forum (RBF) by the sample companies), followed by labor (29.4%) and environment (16.7%) areas
Summary
The Directive 2014/95/EU has changed the landscape of non-financial reporting in Europe. This is a result of the conventional assumption suggesting that large organizations are the heart of the economy and that all other firms are ‘little big companies’ [8], so the advances to engage them in CSR can be scaled down to ‘fit’ [9,10] This might not be as simple as that, since these ‘other than large’ companies have their specificities, so investigating CSR issues in their context requires separate studies. The practices of companies in the RBF report are presented according to the ISO 26000 standard, which divides them into 7 areas: (1) Organizational governance, (2) human rights, (3) labor practices, (4) environment, (5) fair operating practices, (6) consumer issues, Sustainability 2020, 12, 9075 and (7) community involvement and development [15,16,17]. Overall contribution, addressing the limitations of the research, and suggesting recommendations for future studies
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