IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/rvmgts/v12y2018i4d10.1007_s11846-017-0233-4.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

How do sustainability reports from the Nordic and the Mediterranean European countries compare

Author

Listed:
  • Manuel Castelo Branco

    (University of Porto)

  • Catarina Delgado

    (University of Porto)

  • Carla Marques

    (University of Porto)

Abstract

This study investigates the sustainability reporting practices of companies based in the Nordic and the Mediterranean European countries for the period 2013–2015. Its purpose is to analyse to what extent, if any, are there differences in these practices. It seeks to capture the influence of national institutions and firm specific characteristics in sustainability reporting. Non-parametric statistics are used to analyse some factors which influence disclosure, namely country, industry affiliation, type of property, listing status and size. In accordance with the theoretical frame used, that of the varieties of capitalism approach, findings suggest that in general companies from Mediterranean European countries present higher levels of engagement with the Global Reporting Initiative.

Suggested Citation

  • Manuel Castelo Branco & Catarina Delgado & Carla Marques, 2018. "How do sustainability reports from the Nordic and the Mediterranean European countries compare," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 12(4), pages 917-936, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:rvmgts:v:12:y:2018:i:4:d:10.1007_s11846-017-0233-4
    DOI: 10.1007/s11846-017-0233-4
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11846-017-0233-4
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11846-017-0233-4?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Reinhard Steurer & Andre Martinuzzi & Sharon Margula, 2012. "Public Policies on CSR in Europe: Themes, Instruments, and Regional Differences," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 19(4), pages 206-227, July.
    2. Isabelle Maignan & David A Ralston, 2002. "Corporate Social Responsibility in Europe and the U.S.: Insights from Businesses' Self-presentations," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 33(3), pages 497-514, September.
    3. Francesca Gambarotto & Stefano Solari, 2015. "The peripheralization of Southern European capitalism within the EMU," Review of International Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(4), pages 788-812, August.
    4. René Orij, 2010. "Corporate social disclosures in the context of national cultures and stakeholder theory," Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 23(7), pages 868-889, September.
    5. Halme, Minna & Huse, Morten, 1997. "The influence of corporate governance, industry and country factors on environmental reporting," Scandinavian Journal of Management, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 137-157, June.
    6. Robert Strand & R. Freeman & Kai Hockerts, 2015. "Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability in Scandinavia: An Overview," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 127(1), pages 1-15, March.
    7. Torbjörn Tagesson & Veronica Blank & Pernilla Broberg & Sven‐Olof Collin, 2009. "What explains the extent and content of social and environmental disclosures on corporate websites: a study of social and environmental reporting in Swedish listed corporations," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 16(6), pages 352-364, November.
    8. Stéphane Legendre & François Coderre, 2013. "Determinants of GRI G3 Application Levels: The Case of the Fortune Global 500," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 20(3), pages 182-192, May.
    9. Walker, Martin, 2010. "Accounting for varieties of capitalism: The case against a single set of global accounting standards," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(3), pages 137-152.
    10. Gregory Jackson & Androniki Apostolakou, 2010. "Corporate Social Responsibility in Western Europe: An Institutional Mirror or Substitute?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 94(3), pages 371-394, July.
    11. Claude Dupuy & Stéphanie Lavigne & Dalila Nicet-Chenaf, 2010. "Does Geography Still Matter? Evidence on the Portfolio Turnover of Large Equity Investors and Varieties of Capitalism," Economic Geography, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 86(1), pages 75-98, January.
    12. Barkemeyer, Ralf & Preuss, Lutz & Lee, Lindsay, 2015. "On the effectiveness of private transnational governance regimes—Evaluating corporate sustainability reporting according to the Global Reporting Initiative," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 312-325.
    13. Laura Albareda & Josep Lozano & Tamyko Ysa, 2007. "Public Policies on Corporate Social Responsibility: The Role of Governments in Europe," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 74(4), pages 391-407, September.
    14. Fochesato, Mattia & Bowles, Samuel, 2015. "Nordic exceptionalism? Social democratic egalitarianism in world-historic perspective," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 30-44.
    15. Ans Kolk & Paolo Perego, 2010. "Determinants of the adoption of sustainability assurance statements: an international investigation," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(3), pages 182-198, March.
    16. Matthias S. Fifka & Maria Drabble, 2012. "Focus and Standardization of Sustainability Reporting – A Comparative Study of the United Kingdom and Finland," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(7), pages 455-474, November.
    17. Chiara Mio & Andrea Venturelli, 2013. "Non‐financial Information About Sustainable Development and Environmental Policy in the Annual Reports of Listed Companies: Evidence from Italy and the UK," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 20(6), pages 340-358, November.
    18. Stephen Chen & Petra Bouvain, 2009. "Is Corporate Responsibility Converging? A Comparison of Corporate Responsibility Reporting in the USA, UK, Australia, and Germany," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 87(1), pages 299-317, April.
    19. van der Laan Smith, Joyce & Adhikari, Ajay & Tondkar, Rasoul H., 2005. "Exploring differences in social disclosures internationally: A stakeholder perspective," Journal of Accounting and Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 123-151.
    20. Iordanis M. Eleftheriadis & Evgenia G. Anagnostopoulou, 2015. "Relationship between Corporate Climate Change Disclosures and Firm Factors," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(8), pages 780-789, December.
    21. Maria KARAMESSINI, 2008. "Continuity and change in the southern European social model," International Labour Review, International Labour Organization, vol. 147(1), pages 43-70, March.
    22. Siri Carson & Øivind Hagen & S. Sethi, 2015. "From Implicit to Explicit CSR in a Scandinavian Context: The Cases of HÅG and Hydro," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 127(1), pages 17-31, March.
    23. Hall, Peter A. & Gingerich, Daniel W., 2009. "Varieties of Capitalism and Institutional Complementarities in the Political Economy: An Empirical Analysis," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 39(3), pages 449-482, July.
    24. Luis Perez-Batres & Jonathan Doh & Van Miller & Michael Pisani, 2012. "Stakeholder Pressures as Determinants of CSR Strategic Choice: Why do Firms Choose Symbolic Versus Substantive Self-Regulatory Codes of Conduct?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 110(2), pages 157-172, October.
    25. Suzanne Young & Magalie Marais, 2012. "A Multi-level Perspective of CSR Reporting: The Implications of National Institutions and Industry Risk Characteristics," Post-Print hal-02523055, HAL.
    26. Matthias S. Fifka, 2013. "Corporate Responsibility Reporting and its Determinants in Comparative Perspective – a Review of the Empirical Literature and a Meta‐analysis," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(1), pages 1-35, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Francisco J. López‐Arceiz & Cristina Del Río & Ana J. Bellostas, 2020. "Sustainability performance indicators: Definition, interaction, and influence of contextual characteristics," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 27(6), pages 2615-2630, November.
    2. Naatu, Felicia & Nyarko, Samuel Anokye & Munim, Ziaul Haque & Alon, Ilan, 2022. "Crowd-out effect on consumers attitude towards corporate social responsibility communication," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 177(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Isabel Gallego‐Álvarez & Ivo Alexandre Quina‐Custodio, 2017. "Corporate Social Responsibility Reporting and Varieties of Capitalism: an International Analysis of State‐Led and Liberal Market Economies," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 24(6), pages 478-495, November.
    2. Matthias S. Fifka & Maria Drabble, 2012. "Focus and Standardization of Sustainability Reporting – A Comparative Study of the United Kingdom and Finland," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(7), pages 455-474, November.
    3. Matthias S. Fifka, 2013. "Corporate Responsibility Reporting and its Determinants in Comparative Perspective – a Review of the Empirical Literature and a Meta‐analysis," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(1), pages 1-35, January.
    4. Patrycja Hąbek & Radosław Wolniak, 2016. "Assessing the quality of corporate social responsibility reports: the case of reporting practices in selected European Union member states," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 50(1), pages 399-420, January.
    5. Isabel Gallego‐Álvarez & María Consuelo Pucheta‐Martínez, 2020. "How cultural dimensions, legal systems, and industry affect environmental reporting? Empirical evidence from an international perspective," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(5), pages 2037-2057, July.
    6. José María Agudo-Valiente & Concepción Garcés-Ayerbe & Manuel Salvador-Figueras, 2017. "Corporate Social Responsibility Drivers and Barriers According to Managers’ Perception; Evidence from Spanish Firms," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(10), pages 1-24, October.
    7. Waris Ali & Jedrzej George Frynas & Zeeshan Mahmood, 2017. "Determinants of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Disclosure in Developed and Developing Countries: A Literature Review," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 24(4), pages 273-294, July.
    8. François Maon & Valérie Swaen & Adam Lindgreen, 2017. "One Vision, Different Paths: An Investigation of Corporate Social Responsibility Initiatives in Europe," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 143(2), pages 405-422, June.
    9. Valentina Marano & Peter Tashman & Tatiana Kostova, 2017. "Escaping the iron cage: Liabilities of origin and CSR reporting of emerging market multinational enterprises," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 48(3), pages 386-408, April.
    10. Barkemeyer, Ralf & Preuss, Lutz & Lee, Lindsay, 2015. "On the effectiveness of private transnational governance regimes—Evaluating corporate sustainability reporting according to the Global Reporting Initiative," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 312-325.
    11. Souad Moufty & Basil Al‐Najjar & Abdulhadi Ibrahim, 2024. "Communications of sustainability practices in the banking sector: Evidence from cross‐country analysis," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(1), pages 135-161, January.
    12. Isabel Gallego‐Alvarez & Eduardo Ortas & José Luis Vicente‐Villardón & Igor Álvarez Etxeberria, 2017. "Institutional Constraints, Stakeholder Pressure and Corporate Environmental Reporting Policies," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(6), pages 807-825, September.
    13. Giuseppe Sannino & Manuela Lucchese & Giovanni Zampone & Rosa Lombardi, 2020. "Cultural dimensions, Global Reporting Initiatives commitment, and corporate social responsibility issues: New evidence from Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development banks," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 27(4), pages 1653-1663, July.
    14. María del Mar Miras-Rodríguez & Roberto Di Pietra, 2018. "Corporate Governance mechanisms as drivers that enhance the credibility and usefulness of CSR disclosure," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 22(3), pages 565-588, September.
    15. Dan Beare & Ruvena Buslovich & Cory Searcy, 2014. "Linkages between Corporate Sustainability Reporting and Public Policy," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 21(6), pages 336-350, November.
    16. Laura Girella & Paola Rossi & Stefano Zambon, 2019. "Exploring the firm and country determinants of the voluntary adoption of integrated reporting," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(7), pages 1323-1340, November.
    17. Mitzi Isabel Cubilla‐Montilla & Purificación Galindo‐Villardón & Ana Belén Nieto‐Librero & María Purificación Vicente Galindo & Isabel María García‐Sánchez, 2020. "What companies do not disclose about their environmental policy and what institutional pressures may do to respect," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 27(3), pages 1181-1197, May.
    18. Anne Michaels & Michael Grüning, 2018. "The impact of corporate identity on corporate social responsibility disclosure," International Journal of Corporate Social Responsibility, Springer, vol. 3(1), pages 1-13, December.
    19. Cristian R. Loza Adaui, 2020. "Sustainability Reporting Quality of Peruvian Listed Companies and the Impact of Regulatory Requirements of Sustainability Disclosures," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(3), pages 1-22, February.
    20. Blanca de-Miguel-Molina & Vicente Chirivella-González & Beatriz García-Ortega, 2016. "Corporate philanthropy and community involvement. Analysing companies from France, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 50(6), pages 2741-2766, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Mediterranean countries; Nordic countries; Sustainability reporting;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • M4 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Accounting
    • M14 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Administration - - - Corporate Culture; Diversity; Social Responsibility

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:rvmgts:v:12:y:2018:i:4:d:10.1007_s11846-017-0233-4. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.