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Corporate Social Reporting: a Tool to Discharge Corporate Accountability or to Enhance Managerial Capture?

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Corporate social reporting: a tool to discharge corporate accountability or to enhance managerial capture?

Introduction

In the last two decades there has been an increased awareness by society in general on the societal and environmental consequences of human behavior, especially towards corporations and its effect on its surroundings. Investors these days are becoming ethically and socially aware, and are more drawn towards investing in companies that contribute positively to society and who are actively reducing any negative impacts it might have. Because of this emerging awareness by public in general and investors, companies need to actively show compliance with this trend. Also due to the damaged reputation corporations have these days due to several scandals that took place around 2001, investors want reassurance when investing in companies. A way to show compliance to these aspects is by producing sustainability reports, which are made available to the public. Sustainability reports, which can also be referred to as Corporate Social Reporting, is a report that shows how a corporation is complying to economic, environmental and societal issues in which it is active. World Business Council for Sustainability Development (WBCSD) established the current and mainly adopted definition for CSR, which states ‘CSR is the continuing commitment by business to behave ethically and contribute to economic development while improving the quality of life of the workforce and their families as well as the local community and society at large’ (WBCSD, 1999).

CSR is not a mandatory practice, there are established guidelines that can be adhered namely the international recognised GRI reporting framework on sustainability. Even so, companies can produce any kind of CSR, which is causing a lot vagueness surrounding its concept. Reports differ immensely from

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