Enhancing the Quality of Reporting in Corporate Social Responsibility Guidance Documents: The Roles of ISO 26000, Global Reporting Initiative and CSR‐Sustainability Monitor

• Author: Mert Demir,Janet L. Rovenpor,S. Prakash Sethi
• Date: 01 June 2017
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/basr.12113
• Published date: 01 June 2017

Enhancing the Quality of

Reporting in Corporate Social

Responsibility Guidance

Documents: The Roles of

ISO 26000, Global

Reporting Initiative and

CSR-Sustainability Monitor*

S. PRAKASH SETHI, JANET L. ROVENPOR, AND MERT DEMIR

ABSTRACT

The intent of this article is to review the phenomenal

growth of Corporate Social Responsibility reports pub-

lished by large corporations around the world. The

reports provide companies with an opportunity to inform

large segments of society about the impacts of their busi-

ness operations on the environmental, socio-political, and

governmental (regulatory) aspects of a society. The mostly

voluntary nature of these reports, however, places the

*Funding support for this research was provided by the Weissman Center for International

Business, Zicklin School of Business, Baruch College/CUNY, One Bernard Baruch Way, NY,

NY 10010, and is gratefully acknowledged. We also gratefully acknowledge the research assis-

tance of Alex Schwarz.

S. Prakash Sethi is a University Distinguished Professor at Baruch College, CUNY, One

Bernard Baruch Way, Box J-1034, New York, NY. E-mail: prakash.sethi@baruch.cuny.edu.

Janet L. Rovenpor is Interim Dean, School of Business, Manhattan College, Riverdale, NY.

E-mail: janet.rovenpor@manhattan.edu. Mert Demir is the Director of Research at Weissman

Center for International Business, Baruch College, CUNY, New York, NY. E-mail: mert.demir@

baruch.cuny.edu.

V

C2017 W. Michael Hoffman Center for Business Ethics at Bentley University. Published by

Wiley Periodicals, Inc., 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA, and 9600 Garsington

Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK.

Business and Society Review 122:2 139–163

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burden on the corporations creating them to (a) provide

an adequate amount of information, (b) cover all the

major issues that are relevant to the company and indus-

try, and (c) provide measures of assurance as to the accu-

racy of information.

In this article, we compare and examine three institu-

tional approaches that have played an important role

toward improving the quality and consistency of these

reports. The institutions involved are ISO 26000, Global

Reporting Initiative (GRI), and Corporate Social Responsi-

bility (CSR)-Sustainability Monitor. We intend to show

their different approaches to guiding CSR reporting, and

assess their relative strengths and limitations.

INTRODUCTION

In 2013, KPMG reported that 93 percent of the top 250 corpora-

tions on Fortune Magazine’s Global index issued some type of

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) report (up from 80 percent

in 2008).

1

Despite the high rate of reporting, significant questions

remain regarding the corporate interests in creating these reports, as

well as their quality. As Cho, Laine, Roberts and Rodrigue noted, “...

an often heard complaint is that corporations only engage with envi-

ronmental and social issues on a symbolic level. Through omitting

negative information and highlighting positive impacts, these organi-

zations seek to appear socially responsible and environmentally

friendly. In sustainability reports corporations avoid addressing the

fundamentally unsustainable underpinnings of their operations.”

2

Because it is impossible to satisfy the conflicting demands of diverse

stakeholders, managers engage in hypocrisy, erect organizational

facades, and use impression management tactics to manage expect-

ations, preserve corporate reputations, and give the appearance that

they are working hard at social and environmental issues.

3

Likewise, Milne and Gray found that the low quality of CSR

reporting resulted from the cherry picking of supportive news sto-

ries, the lack of discourse on major social problems, and an inat-

tention to the issues of ecological footprints, carrying capacity,

equity, and social justice. They concluded that reporting is not the

140 BUSINESS AND SOCIETY REVIEW