Reporting on sustainable development: A comparison of three Italian small and medium‐sized enterprises

Nowadays, we are facing a new phase of capitalism. Information that is beyond financial capital and able to provide a more comprehensive picture of the path towards sustainable development of organizations is increasingly needed. A remarkable body of evidence already exists on how large listed compa...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Corporate social-responsibility and environmental management 2019-07, Vol.26 (4), p.981-996
Main Authors: Girella, Laura, Zambon, Stefano, Rossi, Paola
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Capitalism
Communication
Small & medium sized enterprises-SME
SMEs
sustainability and integrated reporting
Sustainability reporting
Sustainable development
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Summary:Nowadays, we are facing a new phase of capitalism. Information that is beyond financial capital and able to provide a more comprehensive picture of the path towards sustainable development of organizations is increasingly needed. A remarkable body of evidence already exists on how large listed companies are facing this change, but very little is known about small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs). This work aims to analyse if and to what extent new forms of reporting such as sustainability and integrated reporting are adopted by SMEs to illustrate their journey to sustainable development. To this end, the reports of three Italian SMEs have been examined against the internationally set principles and contents of these reporting models. It emerges that, despite the shared ambition of these reports, they are different in nature and deliver a quite distinctive representation of the concerned SMEs and their ways to pursuing and communicating sustainable development at a micro level.
ISSN:1535-3958
1535-3966
DOI:10.1002/csr.1738