Abstract
This paper examines managerial perspectives on work environment (WE) disclosures in corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports. WE encompasses all aspects of the design and management of the work system that affect the employees’ interactions with the workplace. The data are drawn from interviews with 20 CSR managers in large companies that are recognized as high performers in CSR. Managers reported that WE disclosures were an important part of CSR reporting and had several benefits—for example, it helped to maintain companies’ reputations as good places to work, which were of interest to both investors and potential employees. However, WE reporting was at a low level, focusing predominantly on occupational health and safety performance indicators, such as the number of employee injuries per year. We suggest that organizations derive legitimacy by reporting WE disclosures within a corridor of conformance that permits a low level of reporting and a great deal of latitude regarding what topics and how topics are disclosed, provided organizations meet institutional expectations. The corridor is maintained by an institutional environment in which, from participants’ perspectives, few external stakeholders were interested in WE disclosures representing employee well-being (e.g., psychological health) and the prevailing CSR reporting standards and guidelines provide scant information about employee health.
Highlights
Work-related injuries and fatalities continue to have a staggering effect on employees
Another Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) manager noted the close connection between the corporation and CSR reporting: “So work environment fits into our corporate code of conduct, safety elements of it” (#12)
This article contributes to the conversation about work environment (WE) disclosures in CSR reporting, which is an important but largely understudied area
Summary
Work-related injuries and fatalities continue to have a staggering effect on employees. WE disclosures tend to provide information on a narrow set of WE dimensions that heavily focus on occupational health and safety [11,12,13], frequently defined as the number of reported lost-time injuries or fatalities [10]. This narrow safety focus underrepresents worker well-being indicators, such as psychological health, in the disclosures and results in only a “partial picture of people” [14] (p.152), within the organization. Another limitation of worker health disclosures has been that the methods of reporting are so diverse that they make cross-company comparisons extremely difficult, if not impossible [13]
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