Sustainability Reporting in Central and Eastern European Companies: Results of an International and Empirical Study

Abstract

Reporting on corporate social, environmental and economic responsibility has broadened widely within the last decade. The European Union is the most active region in the world in terms of sustainability reporting, largely on a voluntary basis. Most of the empirical research related to sustainability reporting in Europe has been conducted in Western European countries. In Central and Eastern Europe, only a small number of studies have focused on sustainability reporting. Little, however, is known whether how and why companies in CEE report about their corporate sustainable activities. The aim of the research project is to describe the status quo of SR in CEE, to explain some noteworthy differences between the two subsamples CEE and WE and to predict the future development of SR in the CEE region. To address this research issue, we have established a research consortium with researchers from ten Central and Eastern European Countries: Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. Two Western European countries, Germany and Austria, have been added to the sample to enable a regional comparison.