CSR Reporting Practices in Visegrad Group Countries and the Quality of Disclosure

Patrycja Hąbek

doi:10.3390/su9122322

Abstract

Companies around the world more often issue publicly available reports to disclose how responsibly they conduct their business. The practices of corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting are more popular in western part of Europe then in Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries and empirical studies related to these practices in the region are sporadic and fragmented. The Visegrad Group countries have undergone tremendous changes in political, environmental and social area during the last twenty years. The CSR concept in these countries is relatively new but is rapidly spreading, in particular as part of their integration with the European Union, as well as under the influence of transnational corporations (TNCs) and foreign investors. Therefore, acquisition of knowledge, which presents the functioning of CSR reporting practices in the region seems to be of interest to both the scientific community and enterprises themselves. An important part of the analysis conducted in the study was the assessment of quality of CSR reports issued in this region. The quality indicator of the studied reports was based on seventeen criteria related to relevance and credibility of disclosed information. The findings indicate that CSR reporting practices are not widespread among V4 countries and suggest some area of improvements. Furthermore, the achieved results confirm the existence of a relationship between two factors (external verification of a report and usage of the GRI guidelines when developing a report) and the level of quality of the CSR report.

Highlights

The growing expectations of stakeholders in regard to the transparency and responsibility of enterprises imply measuring and disclosing the impact of business decisions on society and the natural environment
In the European Union, we can find different approaches to corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting [12,13] and this article tries to contribute to the debate on patterns of current CSR practices, especially in countries which have undergone a transition from a centrally planned to a market economy
Studies on quality of information disclosed in CSR reports can be divided into at least two groups [29,37]

Summary

Introduction

The growing expectations of stakeholders in regard to the transparency and responsibility of enterprises imply measuring and disclosing the impact of business decisions on society and the natural environment. Transition from a centrally planned to a market economy in this region, as well as social and political transformations could have caused that stakeholders (i.e., civil organizations, media, consumers) from Visegrad Group (V4) countries might be less influential than from old EU Member States. In the European Union, we can find different approaches to CSR reporting [12,13] and this article tries to contribute to the debate on patterns of current CSR practices, especially in countries which have undergone a transition from a centrally planned to a market economy. The aim of this paper is to present the current state of CSR reporting in Visegrad Group countries, to identify the quality level of these kinds of practices as well as the relationship of the two factors which influence the quality of those reports

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion