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Mandatory Nonfinancial Disclosures: The State of Art

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Corporate Social Responsibility in a Dynamic Global Environment

Part of the book series: CSR, Sustainability, Ethics & Governance ((CSEG))

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Abstract

Academics and practitioners are clamoring for convergence and/or harmonization of nonfinancial disclosures (NFD). Previous studies show the de facto harmonization of the application of main standards (GRI, IIRC) by companies. Several studies investigate the degree of flexibility of the contents of NFD regulations and if the mandatory regime can determine the typologies of sustainable performance disclosed by companies and the comparability of reports. No research has broadened the perspective to several countries in the world adopting a comparative approach. The objective of our research is to bridge this gap by discussing the convergence in NFD regulatory provisions of different countries. A manual text analysis of legislation has been performed. The analysis is focused on ten countries with reporting rates of sustainability higher than 90%. The main results highlight that there are no similarities between the different legislations. Most of the regulations have a flexible approach leaving a wide margin of discretion to companies. Moreover, while it is true that the NFD today finds a regulatory base in most countries of the world, each legislation differs from the others. There are situations of convergence regarding the position of the report. There is wide flexibility on the choice of framework; despite this, there is a de facto comparability in terms of adopted standards. The need for harmonization can therefore also be refuted at a regulatory level, except for specific sectors or groups of countries.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Management, Università Politecnica delle Marche, Ancona, Italy

    Eva Cerioni, Alessia D’Andrea, Marco Giuliani & Stefano Marasca

Authors
  1. Eva Cerioni
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  2. Alessia D’Andrea
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  3. Marco Giuliani
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  4. Stefano Marasca
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Eva Cerioni .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Lisbon Accounting and Business School, Lisbon, Portugal

    Irene Guia Arraiano

  2. Department of Business Administration and Santander Financial Institute (SANFI), University of Cantabria, Santander, Spain

    Belén Díaz

  3. Department of Economics, Society and Politics, University of Urbino Carlo Bo, Urbino, Italy

    Mara Del Baldo

  4. BFH, Bern, Switzerland

    René Schmidpeter

  5. Guildhall School of Business and Law, London Metropolitan University, London, UK

    Samuel O. Idowu

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Cerioni, E., D’Andrea, A., Giuliani, M., Marasca, S. (2023). Mandatory Nonfinancial Disclosures: The State of Art. In: Arraiano, I.G., Díaz, B., Del Baldo, M., Schmidpeter, R., Idowu, S.O. (eds) Corporate Social Responsibility in a Dynamic Global Environment. CSR, Sustainability, Ethics & Governance. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-24647-0_17

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