Understanding Indigenous Reconciliation Action Plans from a corporate social responsibility perspective

Abstract

Many local and foreign companies operating in Australia are now establishing Reconciliation Action Plans (RAPs) to commit to and report on specific activities for engaging Indigenous stakeholders. While RAPs appear to align with existing approaches of sustainability reporting, these disclosure practices are yet to be empirically investigated within the broader context of CSR, or specifically the implications for stakeholder theory perspective. This paper examines RAP reporting practices over a thirteen year period, as well as how firms disclose reconciliation activities into their sustainability reporting and whether firms with RAPs disclose more ‘reconciliation’ activities than others. A content analysis is performed based on a sample of RAPs, sustainability reports and website data from companies operating in the Australian resources sector. Results indicate that firms do integrate reconciliation activities into their general sustainability reporting, however the quality of disclosure was in most cases low. The analysis also shows that on average, firms with RAPs do disclose reconciliation activities in greater detail than similar firms without. These findings provide a new empirical understanding embedded within theoretical perspectives of CSR, to support further integration of RAPs across industry and improve community impact.