Integrating corporate social responsibility and intellectual capital report: a small sample research

Abstract

The article illustrates the empirical experiences of some Italian companies which started to integrate social and intangible issues in their voluntary corporate communication report. The main aims of this paper are two-fold. Firstly, using a small sample of companies disclosing their intangibles in a single document, the article describes some general trends in the direction of integrating corporate communication reports. Secondly, using an integrated approach in examining the effects of the investigated case studies on the Italian context, the article provides evidence of how the experiences of companies following a strong integration between CSR and IC report can contribute to model the development of a territory, that of Italy, which is characterised by a low national intellectual capital value, and it is in this that the main originality of the paper lies. The general findings go in the same direction: integrating intangibles' disclosure is a single document offers advantages for companies and for the context within which companies operate. The main limit of the research lies in the small sample of companies examined. However, the study can provide an impulse for further research on larger samples.