Title
Sustainability reporting in Brazil and Italy. Exploring distinct approaches.
Introduction
Institutional theory deals with the interaction between the organizations and the institutional dynamics,
it points out the social expectations holds a main role in shaping firms’ behaviour and practices (Wright
et al., 2005; Ostrom, 1991; Dillard et al., 2004). Institutionalized activities are the result of interrelated
process between firms and institutional context and they are the results of organizational conforming
mechanisms to existing social norms (Covaleski and Dirsmith, 1988). The institutional theory discuss
about the adaptation of an institutional practice by an organization (coercive, mimetic and normative
isomorphism mechanisms) and organizational practices being different from institutionalized ones
(decoupling mechanisms) (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983; Dillard et al., 2004; Azlan and Roszaini,
2011).
In the field of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) institutional theory refers to the power social
context exerts on stakeholder management and corporate social performance (Jones, 1999), to the
relationship between social and environmental state-regulation and self-regulation (Neergaard and
Pedersen, 2003), and it mainly discussed the national differences that affects firm approach to CSR
(Maignan and Ralston, 2002; Matten and Moon, 2008). In the light of institutional theory, firms located
in different countries may be recognized a different social role. A growing number of works found
significant impacts of national differences on behaviours of firms referring to CSR (Habish et al., 2011;
Papasolomou-Doukadis et al., 2005; Juholin, 2004; Fulop et al., 2000; Tencati et al., 2004; Abreu et al.,
2005). Starting from institutional perspective, a “CSR divide” between developed and developing
1
countries has emerged in literature (Barkemeyer, 2011) and it underlines the different impact CSR
commitment determines on the surrounding conditions (Gugler and Shi, 2008; Tan and Wang, 2011).
While organizations in the developed areas have been found to adopt an active approach to social or
environmental oriented practices, companies in emerging nations predominantly apply reactive or
defensive practices to respond to pressures (Jamali and Mirshak, 2006).
Among CSR practices, social responsibility disclosure (SRD) is particularly relevant because it
expresses firms’ commitment and performance on CSR, thus making firms’ social and environmental
policies more explicit (Demirag, 2005; Cooper and Owen, 2007). As stakeholder engagement holds a
major role in CSR (Greenwood, 2007), firms’ commitment to disclose qualitative and quantitative
information on CSR has acquired importance in the eye of stakeholders and become a more frequent
and stable practice within corporate communication, since a growing number of firms has moved from
the previously dominating shareholders’ point of view in recent years (Charreaux and Desbrières,
2001). The last extensive survey on SRD conducted in 2008 revealed that about 80% of companies
integrate non-financial indicators in their SRD (KPMG, 2008).
Previous researches on SRD analyzed the phenomenon in terms of amount of social and environmental
information (Deegan and Gordon, 1996; Gray et al., 1995; Jose and Lee, 2007); others again addressed
the antecedents of publications of sustainability reports internal to the firms such as company size,
company age, risk, corporate governance and values (Hackston and Milne, 1996; Deegan and Gordon,
1996; Roberts 1992; Haniffa and Cooke, 2005; Cambpbell, 2000; Walden Schwartz, 1997; Adams,
2002; Meek et al., 1995) and external, such as social, political and cultural context (Hogner, 1982;
Burchell et al, 1985; Adams and Harte, 1998; Vormedal and Ruud, 2000; Haniffa and Cooke, 2005). In
particular, this last one explores those factors (e.g. stakeholder pressure; industry-specific features)
which are supposed to determine the level of SRD (Barako and Brown, 2008; Tagesson et al., 2009).
2
Even if there is a large set of research on SRD, a lack of knowledge emerges regarding the differences
between SRD in developed and developing counties from an institutional theory perspective.
Extant studies confirm that country context affect the disclosure of CSR related information by firms
(Boesso and Kumar, 2007; Kolk, 2005; Kolk et al., 2001; Maignan and Ralston, 2002; Meek et al.,
1995). For example, political, social and cultural factors determine the issues to be included in Codes
of Ethics and the importance given to them (Zattoni and Cuomo, 2008; Langlois and Schlegelmilch,
1990; Schlegelmilch and Houston, 1989). Again, companies have resulted to respond to specific
requests that arise in their surrounding context notwithstanding the growing relevance of international
standards on CSR commitment and disclosure aimed at making firms’ behaviours converge in term of
practices, models and contents and at fostering comparability and understandability (Maon et al.,
2009).
The article is aimed at provide two main contributions to research. Firstly, it contributes to the
extension of the literature around CSR in developing and emergent countries, which are under-studied
compared to developed ones (Muller and Kolk, 2009). Most of the literature, indeed, takes into
consideration western and northern countries which usually present a higher degree in social progress
and development (Castelo et al., 2008; Chen and Bouvain, 2008; Perrini et al., 2007; Maignan and
Ralston, 2002; Gray et al., 1995). Secondly, the paper explores the relation between institutional
contexts and SRD in developed and developing countries. Giving the different social patterns and role
of institutions (Puppim de Oliveira, 2002), the companies acknowledge a different role in social
progress and environmental protection as the information provided in reports focus on different aspect
of their CSR commitment Wanderley, 2008).
The article explores impact of institutional differences between one representative developed country
(Italy) and one representative emerging economy (Brazil) through an original perspective which
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analyzes the social and environmental content of corporate reports – whether social or financial. We
conducted a content-analysis of 100 reports published by the 50 major Italian and Brazilian listed
companies in term of capitalization. The analysis is aimed at identifying differences in topics, type and
amount of CSR related information disclosed by the companies.
The two countries have been chosen based on two main considerations: first, Brazil is the only Latin
country among the emerging ones which are deemed to be at a similar advanced stage of development
(Melé et al. 2006); second, Italy is the largest country representative of the approach devoted to through
the involvement of a diverse group of social actors to the development of CSR (Albareda et al. 2007).
Further, we focused our analysis on large firms for two reasons. First, they are more susceptible to
scrutiny from stakeholder groups and they therefore are more sensitive to institutional pressures than
smaller ones (Adams et al. 1998; Archel 2003; Neu et al. 1998; Patten 1991; Purushothaman et al.
2000). Second because, on average, they are more diversified across geographical and product markets,
thus having a wider and more diverse stakeholder network (Brammer and Pavelin 2004a, p. 704).
The article is structured as follow. The first two paragraphs discuss the development of CSR in the
Italian and Brazilian country context, so as to make the different approaches suggested by extant
literature emerge. Next, the methodology of research is presented, with reference to sample description,
measures and content-analysis. Finally, results are discussed and conclusions are drawn.
CSR and SRD in developed countries and Italy
Previous studies on CSR in European countries have shown that national governments promote CSR
through a relational approach (fostering institutions, NGOs and businesses) to establish strict and
collaborative relationships and promote sustainable development (Albareda et al., 2008). Hence,
4
pressures on the context suggest that CSR polices and activities should be framed on a well-developed
network of relationships among different subjects with different needs and expectations.
Literature on the development of CSR in Italy has mainly focused on the analysis of differences
between SMEs and large firms, rather than on the comparison with other institutional settings (Perrini
et al., 2007; Perrini, 2006a). This might be due to the fact that Italian context is characterized by
prevalence of SMEs, while most of the international literature has been drawn on large and
multinational companies which are expected to be more involved in social and environmental policies
(Polonsky and Jevons, 2009; Russo and Tencati, 2009; Gugler and Shi, 2008;) due to a higher resource
availability, a greater sensitiveness to media coverage and more need to communicate values and
principles to external stakeholders (Graafland et al., 2003). Moreover, previous research have also
suggested that while small and medium firms should be studied using the theory of social capital, large
companies’ CSR behaviour is better explained through the adoption of the institutional theory (Perrini,
2006a; Russo and Tencati, 2009; Del Baldo, 2011).
Previous literature allow assuming that large companies in developing countries are at the core of a
complex bundle of relationships and they are thus required to fairly respond to the social and
environmental requests of various groups of stakeholders (Albareda et al., 2008). Therefore, the
contribution to societal development should be given on a wide spectrum of issues and companies use
sustainability reports to demonstrate their commitment to the growth and progress of all the subjects
they enter into relationship with when realizing their operations and business activities (Habish et al.
2011).
Differently from what is going to be discussed in the following paragraph, companies in Italy do not
receive institutional pressures to engage in the solution of wide-spread societal problems, which
usually acknowledged to Government’s responsibility (Secchi, 2006). Instead, they receive pressures to
5
commit to a broad and more general improvement of the impacts that might generate along their
productive processes. In this sense, companies in developed countries are expected to voluntarily
improve the living standards using their knowledge, capabilities and power. In the light of these
considerations, we formulated the following hypothesis on the SRD in Italy:
HP1: SRD in Developed countries is aimed at creating a broad consensus among stakeholder without
a focus on specific group of stakeholders or on specific social problems.
CSR and SRD in developing countries and Brazil
The privatization programs enforced in developing countries in the last decades have transformed the
role of actors in the economic and social context (Damiano-Teixeira and Pompermayer, 2007). On one
side governments had the prominent objective to favour the rapid economic development, therefore
encouraging foreign companies and organizations to invest or move their business activity onto their
territory and accepting looser regulatory regimes to allow favourable labour conditions. On the other
side, private sector acknowledged the implications their activity could have on the national progress
and development.
The rapid growth in the commitment to socially and environmentally responsible activities in the
developing countries private sector is due to the need to support the institutional and governmental
interventions in favour of societal advance (Boudon, 2002). Corporate engagement to CSR was driven
by the recognition of a new role of companies in society and towards local community and the
environment (Jamali and Mirshak, 2007). Therefore firms are expected to contribute to those main
social problems which were of paramount importance for increasing the quality of life of the
population.
6
Though researches which specifically explore CSR in Brazil are limited in number, at least to the
extent of authors’ knowledge, this situation have been found to be common in developing countries
(Arya and Zhang, 2009; Visser, 2008). Therefore a pattern for CSR development has been found which
differs from the one discussed about Developed countries. Before such institutional weakness,
companies tend to assume an explorative approach towards CSR, as issues to be addressed are
determined by the specific condition in the local context rather than defined on the basis of the general
accepted notion (Muller and Kolk, 2009; Logsdon et al., 2006; Kraisornsuthasinee and Swierczek,
2006). Hence, efforts are expected to focus on fewer precise areas or stakeholders. Although very
limited studies have been conducted on the characteristics of SRD in different national and cultural
settings, it is possible to assume that communication should tend to explain the positive effect
determined on the quality of life and the environment, rather than demonstrating the compliance to
institutional requirements and searching for a broad stakeholders’ recognition and consensus.
HP2: SRD in developing countries is aimed at describe the contribution of the firm to critical national
problems rather than being oriented to establish a broad dialogue with stakeholders.
Methodology
Sample
To avoid sample bias, the large firms selection was determined by firms included in each country’s
stock market index. In the research information included in the 100 selected reports from the major 50
Italian and 50 Brazilian firms per capitalization (on 12/31/2009) on the National Stock Exchange of
each country was analyzed. The choice has been based on two main reasons: they are reliable
7
representative samples of National context (Branco and Rodrigues, 2009; Habish et al., 2011); and they
have a culture of higher transparency than those observed in smaller firms (Perrini, 2006b).
Reports to be content analyzed were collected on corporate websites in 2011. Since the communication
of social and environmental performance is voluntary and no mandatory information are required by
national laws or stock exchange rules in both countries, the annual report was included in contentanalysis when sustainability report was not available. This decision was determined by the possibility
that some social and environmental information could have been integrated. Only sustainability and
annual reports have been considered as they represent the main communication tools on corporate
performances towards stakeholders. At the end of documents collection, the final sample included 49
annual reports and 51 sustainability reports. The distribution of the documents by type and industry is
reported in table I. 20 sustainability reports were gathered in Italy, while 31 in Brazil.
Breaking the data per industries, the largest part of the sample is made up by financial & real estate (30
firms) and energy, oil and gas (21) industries. Other industries are almost equally distributed.
[Table I about Here]
Measures and analysis
Type and amount of information provided in CSR reports were analyzed through the “content analysis”
methodology. This methodology allows codifying content on written documents into categories, with
the scope of transforming text into quantitative scales (Weber, 1988) and it has been largely used in the
literature to examine SRD (Among others: Gray et al., 1995; Campbell, 2000; Deegan and Gordon,
1996; Deegan and Rankin, 1996; Holder-Webb, 2007; Milne and Adler, 1999).
8
A list of 36 different items grouped in 5 macro areas were defined starting from several empirical
studies in the area which proved to be of great utility (see, for example, Adams et al., 1998; Gray et al.,
1995; Hackston and Milne, 1996; Patten, 1991; Williams and Pei, 1999). The final list is based on a
previous research by Branco and Rodrigues (2008), who developed and tested on report and website a
SRD index considering items related to five categories: environmental disclosure; human resource
disclosure; customer disclosure; community disclosure; supplier disclosure.
Previous content-analysis focused on the presence or absence of information (see, for example, Haniffa
and Cooke, 2005; Patten, 2002; Puruoshothaman et al., 2000) or relied upon either word counts or page
counts to quantify volume of SRD (Campbell, 2000; Deegan and Gordon, 1996; Deegan and Rankin,
1996; Gray et al., 1995; Milne and Adler, 1999). Recent studies suggested a new approach to content
analysis which was adopted in this study. In line with Holder-Webb et al. (2009), a coding scale to
represent a conceptual analysis with phrases or words as the level of analysis was adopted to avoid the
difficulties due to the overestimation of the word repetitively offered. Each report in the sample was
read to determine the level of coverage of a given variable. Each variable was rated using a 7-point
Likert scale as suggested by previous researches (Holder-Webb et al., 2009). Each document in the
sample was read to determine how intensively it covered a given variable. Each variable was coded for
this intensity using a 7-point Likert scale (0 = No mention; 1 = mentioned but only in reference to
another document or statement; 2 = Brief mention with little or no detail; 3 = Discussion with some
detail but not extensive detail; 4 = Detailed discussion; 5 = Discussion of comprises over 50% of the
document text; and 6 = Document completely dedicated to discussion). This coding scheme
incorporates both coding for the existence (codes of zero versus non-zero) and the relative degree of
dedication to the different information types (codes of 1–6).
9
Starting from the evaluation of each single item an index was calculated for each macro area. The score
for each of the areas is computed as the mean of the scores of the items included in the areas, with a
maximum value of 7 and a minimum value of 1. In accordance with Branco and Rodrigues (2008),
items considered irrelevant for a given company or industry were excluded so as to avoid penalizing for
not disclosing information. A total of five scores for the following areas were computed:
Environmental disclosure, Human resource disclosure, Customer disclosure, Community disclosure,
Supplier disclosure. The total disclosure score as the mean of the 36 items analyzed was eventually
calculated.
Three researchers independently codified the documents. Coders were compared for their level of interrater reliability using correlation coefficients. All the variables showed coefficients exceeding 0.70,
which is considered reliable (Frey et al., 2000; Neuendorf, 2002).
Differences in SRD between firms operating in Brazil and Italy were test through the significance of
mean difference for each item considered and each score of macro areas. An analysis of the
Kolmogorov-Smirnov (K-S Lilliefors) and the Shapiro-Wilk normality test suggests that variables are
not distributed normally. Because the data broke the normal distribution assumption, a set of paired
sample t-test and Wilcoxon-signed rank test were conducted to identify significant differences in SRD
between Italy and Brazil. We tested also significance of adoption of Global d Initiative guidelines, the
main format of SRD, as antecedent of ratings and the relations with disclosure indicators was not
significance whit p-values less than 0.05.
Results and discussion
Table II shows the results of pair sample t-tests and Wilcoxon Test Z between Italy and Brazil. Results
suggest that the area with the higher score is the environmental one both in Italy and Brazil, with a
10
mean score of 2.08 (1.93 in Italy and 2.22 in Brazil). The issue with the lowest score is that on
relationship with suppliers, with a mean score of 1.15 (1.06 in Italy and 1.23 in Brazil) and a highest
value on disclosure related to codes of conducts (1.40).
The analysis points out that the amount of information reported in the analyzed documents is different
by the type of issues considered for each macro-area. From the content-analysis it is possible to identify
such trends of disclosure which consist in a large amount of information reported in each macro area.
As far as the environmental disclosure is concerned, analyzed firms give attention to report the large
part of the issues included in the analysis. We observed an intense amount of information reported
regarding: environmental policy (2.84), pollution from business operations (2.44), conservation of
natural resources and recycling activities (2.56), conservation of energy in the conduct of business
operations (2.71), energy efficiency of products (2.84).
The area of human resource disclosure shows an intensive effort regarding the following items:
employee health and safety (2.85), and employee training (2.82). At a second level of attention is the
disclosure on employment of minorities and woman and the employee assistance/benefit (2.11). From
the customer perspective the data shows that the main focus of the disclosure is on products, with an
attention to product safety (2.57) or quality (2.51). The supplier disclosure is generally characterized by
a lower level of disclosure, so that none of the items analyzed reach a rating greater than 1.40. The
disclosure on community CSR-related issues shows a particular focus on the disclosure of charity
initiatives (2.57) and initiatives related to support of education (2.51). This disclosure trend is justified
by the fact that charity and giving programs are generally recognized as significant CSR-related
activities.
[Table II about Here]
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Moving to the comparison between Italian and Brazilian companies, some differences have been
highlighted by the analysis of reports.
A first observation can be drawn concerning the focus of the disclosure in the two countries. In Italy
Human Resources is the macro-area which obtained the higher score (1.96), while in Brazil it is the
environmental one (2.22).
Going into the details of each single macro-area, companies in the two countries have demonstrated a
diverse orientation. For the environment, Italian companies have resulted to pay more attention to the
description of the adopted polices (3.44), while Brazilian one to the practices related to energy saving
(3.20). Considering customers, satisfaction is the object of the highest consideration in Italy (2.18),
whereas Brazil does consider safety more (2.52). As far as community is concerned, companies in the
two countries are almost equally interested, though some peculiarities can be identified. The Italian
sample gives a higher relevance to themes related to arts & culture (2.02) and sports & recreating
activities (1.32); on the other hand, the Brazilian one does focus on support for education (2.92) and
public health (2.36). The last area on suppliers has received a lesser attention and no major differences
emerge. However, Brazil has obtained a slightly higher score in three issues: supplier’s profiles, quality
and safety control, supplier development.
[Table III about Here]
Analyzing SRD per industries for the overall sample, differences emerge with regard to suppliers,
while other areas show a very similar trend. Indeed, suppliers are more considered by oil & gas
companies (1.60). Comparing the two national samples, industries seem to affect more the SRD
12
behaviour of Italian companies, whereas in Brazil the only significant difference among industries is
the one already mentioned about oil&gas.
As far as peculiarities of the Italian sample, it is possible to observe that the kind of business activity is
of great importance to determine the level of disclosure on environment. In fact, those companies
which operate in industries with high impact on natural resources have a higher score (basic materials:
1.95; energy, oil and gas: 2.82) than those with a low impact activity (financial & real estate: 1.48;
Manufacture: 1.48). Disclosure is different also with regards of the issues on community relationship.
Oil& gas (2.13), finance (2.28) and technology (2.44) companies have a higher score than the others
represented in the sample and this is explicable through the great relevance this sector have for the life
of people and society in general.
Conclusion
Previous studies demonstrated that corporate approach to CSR is influenced by the institutional context
where the companies operate (Matten and Moon, 2008; Neergaard and Pedersen, 2003). The present
work started from these considerations and contributed to the understanding of effect of surrounding
context on the corporate commitment to CSR through the comparison of two national samples in Italy
and Brazil. In particular, the study helped to understand if and how this reflects on SRD activities.
The research confirms the institutional context is an antecedent of SRD, because different pressures
from the external environment observed in Italy and Brazil, defined the nature of disclosure of social
and environmental commitment of a firm. Therefore, while Italian reports are developed starting from
issues raised by various groups of stakeholders, Brazilian ones are more driven by the need to show the
commitment to the critical problems of the national population. This observation is further supported
13
by the fact that industries do not result to affect the decision on CSR report content and issues, as focus
is generally shared among the overall sample.
The results obtained from the content analysis of reports confirm that different institutional contexts
between developed and developing countries impacts on type of information in the sustainability
reports. The Italian companies’ reports are oriented to broad stakeholder dialogue and they are aimed at
providing a response to a broad spectrum of stakeholders’ needs. Such an approach can be related to
the “Agorà” model (Albareda et al., 2006). The research thus confirmed the first hypothesis, showing
that the government plays a fundamental role through nationalized businesses and high regulation.
Public policies on CSR are formulated through the involvement of a diverse group of social actors, and
a broad dialogue and negotiation are the key methods used by firms to achieve consensus. The results
of the study confirmed these main features, underlining the influence of institutional context on SRD,
which in Italy is basically oriented to a broad dialogue with stakeholders.
Brazilian companies’ disclosure is largely affected by the condition of being in an emergent country
where firms are attended to demonstrate the contribution given to societal progress with regards to
main problems within the country. This result confirms the second hypothesis. In this sense, CSR
reports of Brazilian companies are focused on presenting and explaining the impacts related to
operations and products. This focal point is consistent with the relevance of environmental issues in
Brazil, where waste and emission are main points on the institutional agenda. Indeed, where
Governments are under pressures to encourage societal development but have scarce resources, the
responsibility is shared among a wider number of subjects which have to tackle the most relevant
problems (Puppim de Oliveira, 2002).
Some limitations must be highlighted. The first is about the dimension of the sample. Though 50
reports per country can be considered a representative sample, it could be useful to replicate the same
14
methodology of analysis with other countries. Moreover, the analysis and the methodology would
benefit from the inclusion of small and medium firms, which in the case of the countries here
considered represent an important part of the business context. The extension of sampling to smaller
firms could increase the reliability of results, evaluating the relevance of firms’ dimension as a
mediator of institutional context impact on disclosure. The third limitation is due to the comparison of
two only countries. This was due to the fact that the adopted methodology was highly time-consuming.
However, future research could extend the study to a larger number of countries thus enriching the
cross-cultural comparison with different institutional structure. The reliability of methodology used
could be considered to analyze countries, which could be representative of other institutional contexts.
It could be interesting to analyze differences in different countries among European Union, or a global
comparison including countries from Asian institutional context and Explicit CSR context observed in
United States.
15
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24
Tables
Table I – Sampling
Description
Final Sample
Companies with Annual report
Companies with Sustainability report
Total
n
Italy
n
Brazil
%
n
%
100
49
51
50
30
20
60
40
50
19
31
38
62
14
21
11
11
13
30
4
12
2
5
9
18
8
24
4
10
18
36
10
9
9
6
4
12
20
18
18
12
8
24
Companies by industry
Basic Materials
Energy, Oil & Gas
Services
Technology
Manufacturing
Financials & Real Estate
25
Table II – Differences in SRD by Country
Total
Italy
Brazil
Item
Mean
SD
Mean
SD
Mean
SD
Paired sample
t-test
T(2, 147)
Wilcoxon test
Z
ENVIRONMENTAL
Environmental policy
Environmental management, systems and audit
Pollution from business operations
Pollution arising from use of product
Discussion of specific environmental law and regulations
Prevention or repair of damage to the environment
Conservation of natural resources and recycling activities
Sustainability
Conservation of energy in the conduct of business operations
Energy efficiency of products
Mean of environmental reporting
2.84
1.53
2.44
1.93
1.33
2.17
2.56
1.19
2.71
2.84
2.08
1.63
1.53
1.67
1.56
1.35
1.54
1.68
1.55
1.74
1.63
1.26
3.44
1.64
2.38
1.80
1.52
2.36
2.50
1.18
2.22
1.50
1.93
1.70
1.37
1.79
1.47
1.18
1.59
1.72
1.60
1.68
1.37
1.30
2.24
1.42
2.50
2.06
1.14
1.98
2.62
1.20
3.20
2.62
2.22
1.33
1.69
1.54
1.66
1.48
1.48
1.66
1.51
1.68
1.71
1.21
-3.94 ***
-0.71
0.36
0.83
-1.42
-1.24
0.35
0.06
2.92 ***
3.61 ***
1.13
-4,34 ***
-0,72
-0,11
-0,98
-1,57
-1,38
-0,42
-0,18
-3,20 ***
-3,78 ***
-0,83 0,41
HUMAN RESOURCE
Employee health and safety
Employment of minorities or woman
Employee training
Employee assistance/benefit
Employee remuneration
Employee profiles
Employee share purchase schemes
Employee morale
Industrial relations
Mean of human resource reporting
2.85
2.11
2.82
2.11
1.46
2.32
0.76
1.97
1.26
1.96
1.80
1.69
1.65
1.54
1.43
1.32
1.18
1.59
1.50
1.02
3.36
2.10
3.24
2.20
1.94
2.86
1.30
1.42
2.16
2.29
1.44
1.68
1.53
1.41
1.39
1.23
1.33
1.33
1.52
0.96
2.34
2.12
2.40
2.02
0.98
1.78
0.22
2.52
0.36
1.64
1.99
1.71
1.68
1.66
1.32
1.20
0.68
1.66
0.78
0.97
-2.94
0.06
-2.61
-0.58
-3.54
-4.45
-5.12
3.66
-7.47
-3.35
-2,43
-0,07
-2,55
-0,23
-3,29
-4,44
-4,59
-3,49
-5,88
-3,31
CUSTOMER
Product safety
Product quality
Disclosing of consumer safety practices
Consumer complaints/satisfaction
Provision for disabled. aged. and difficult-to-reach consumers
Mean of customer reporting
2.29
2.77
1.94
1.45
1.19
1.93
1.58
1.40
1.64
1.77
1.60
1.24
2.06
2.64
1.48
2.18
1.00
1.87
1.45
1.37
1.47
1.87
1.47
1.25
2.52
2.90
2.40
0.72
1.38
1.98
1.69
1.43
1.68
1.33
1.71
1.23
1.46
0.93
2.91 ***
-4.50 ***
1.19
0.45
-1,78 *
-1,19
-2,95 ***
-4,08 ***
-1,18
-0,40
COMMUNITY
Charitable donations and activities
Support for education
Support for arts and culture
Support for public health
Support for sport or recreating projects
Mean of community reporting
2.57
2.51
1.52
2.07
0.72
1.88
1.52
1.56
1.59
1.77
1.14
1.12
2.38
2.10
2.02
1.78
1.32
1.92
1.50
1.39
1.57
1.50
1.28
1.26
2.76
2.92
1.02
2.36
0.12
1.84
1.53
1.63
1.45
1.98
0.48
0.97
-1.25
-2.71
3.31
-1.65
6.19
0.37
-1,39
-2,83
-3,23
-1,59
-5,40
-0,99
SUPPLIER
Suppliers’ profiles
Respect of contract clauses and anti-corruption policies
Codes of conduct and (inter)national standards and initiatives
Controls and monitoring of suppliers’ compliance
Health and safety in suppliers’ plants
Product/Service quality and safety control
Support to supplier development
Mean of supplier reporting
1.28
1.25
1.40
1.35
1.00
1.07
0.67
1.15
1.35
1.27
1.45
1.36
1.13
1.22
1.16
0.96
1.02
1.24
1.28
1.30
1.10
1.08
0.42
1.06
1.33
1.20
1.26
1.22
1.15
1.18
0.93
0.88
1.54
1.26
1.52
1.40
0.90
1.06
0.92
1.23
-1.33
-1.35
-1.62
-1.50
1.11
1.28
-1.31
1.04
MEAN OF TOTAL REPORTING
1.82
0.93
1.84
1.01
1.79
0.85
* Significant at the 0.10 level (2-tailed).
** Significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed)
*** Significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed)-
26
***
***
***
***
***
***
***
***
***
***
*
*
***
***
***
***
***
***
***
***
***
***
***
***
*
***
1.95 **
0.08
0.83
0.37
0.89
-0.08
2.21 *
0.86
-2,00 **
-0,06
-0,75
-0,38
- 0,92
- 0,11 **
- 2,10 **
- 0,85
-0.25
- 0,47
Table III – Differences in SRD by Industry
Industry
Basic
Materials
M
SD
Energy,
Financials Manufactur
Oil & Gas & Real Estate
M
SD
M
SD
M
SD
Services
Technology
M
SD
M
SD
ANOVA
F (2, 147)
BRAZIL
Environmental
Human Resource
Customer
Community
Supplier
Sustainability
2.16
1.76
1.46
1.68
0.97
1.66
1.15
0.88
1.20
1.00
0.83
0.84
2.48
1.56
2.09
1.91
1.81
1.98
1.33
1.05
1.20
0.81
1.02
0.77
2.49
1.69
2.07
1.65
1.51
1.92
1.21
1.12
1.34
0.70
1.20
0.95
2.05
1.83
1.75
2.35
0.32
1.66
0.78
1.08
1.24
1.15
0.41
0.60
1.73
1.72
2.29
1.93
1.05
1.70
1.41
1.00
1.39
1.36
1.08
1.09
2.22
1.22
2.23
1.87
1.10
1.70
1.26
0.90
1.11
1.12
0.98
0.72
F=0.49
F=0.29
F=0.54
F=0.37
F=1.64 *
F=0.23
ITALIA
Environmental
Human Resource
Customer
Community
Supplier
Sustainability
1.95
2.14
1.45
0.95
0.79
1.56
1.56
0.79
0.91
1.17
0.88
1.07
2.82
2.56
1.82
2.13
1.44
2.25
0.95
0.75
0.99
1.03
0.83
0.78
1.48
2.23
2.19
2.28
1.00
1.78
1.26
1.16
1.58
1.29
0.87
1.12
1.48
1.88
1.56
1.27
0.70
1.41
1.47
0.95
1.08
1.37
0.96
1.12
2.05
2.28
1.30
1.00
0.79
1.61
1.48
1.65
1.84
1.41
1.11
1.49
2.20
2.69
2.00
2.44
1.37
2.17
0.95
0.47
1.03
0.77
0.82
0.59
F=1.99 *
F=0.72
F=0.51
F=1.86 *
F=1.01
F=0.92
TOTAL
Environmental
Human Resource
Customer
Community
Supplier
Sustainability
2.10
1.87
1.46
1.47
0.92
1.63
1.22
0.85
1.09
1.06
0.82
0.87
2.67
2.13
1.93
2.04
1.60
2.14
1.11
1.01
1.07
0.93
0.91
0.77
1.89
2.01
2.14
2.03
1.20
1.84
1.32
1.16
1.47
1.12
1.02
1.04
1.65
1.86
1.62
1.60
0.58
1.49
1.29
0.94
1.08
1.36
0.83
0.97
1.79
1.82
2.11
1.76
1.00
1.68
1.35
1.06
1.43
1.35
1.04
1.09
2.21
1.89
2.13
2.13
1.22
1.91
1.08
1.04
1.03
0.98
0.88
0.67
F=1.55
F=0.23
F=0.84
F=0.85
F=2.18 **
F=1.02
* Significant at the 0.10 level (2-tailed).
** Significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed)
*** Significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed)-
27