IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aes/amfeco/v21y2019i50p41.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Clarity of the Information Regarding the Bioeconomy: An Analysis of the Reports Published by the Organizations

Author

Listed:
  • Viorel Avram

    (The Bucharest University of Economic Studies)

  • Daniela Artemisa Calu

    (The Bucharest University of Economic Studies)

  • Valentin Florentin Dumitru

    (The Bucharest University of Economic Studies)

  • Tatiana Danescu

    (University of Medicine, Pharmacy, Sciences and Technology of Târgu Mure?)

Abstract

Bioeconomy is a material potential source of sustainable growth that calls for new approaches in research and innovation to bring about concrete improvements in Europe’s social, economic and environmental wellfare. The purpose of our research is to evaluate the clarity of reports published by organizations. The assessment of the clarity of the published reports is done for both financial and non-financial information (containing elements related to bioeconomy). The steps of this research are: (i) the investigation of the clarity of the information included in the sustainability reports, and (ii) explanation of the atypical evolution of the clarity score, using the characteristics of the cultural dimensions of the home country. We analysed 77 reports published on the websites of 17 organizations in three environmentally-sensitive activity domains in 11 countries. Using content analysis, we determine an annual score of information clarity for each organization. The results of the research show that after switching to integrated reporting in 2013 the score of information clarity was improved for 65% of the companies. Eleven organizations have a degree of information clarity for the reports published in 2013 and 2016 better than for those published in 2010. We find five atypical cases for which the score of information clarity remains the same for all the three periods under investigation. These cases have been analyzed from the point of view of the cultural characteristics existing in the organization’s home country. Through our research we provide feedback to organizations on how they can improve the clarity of their published reports.

Suggested Citation

  • Viorel Avram & Daniela Artemisa Calu & Valentin Florentin Dumitru & Tatiana Danescu, 2019. "The Clarity of the Information Regarding the Bioeconomy: An Analysis of the Reports Published by the Organizations," The AMFITEATRU ECONOMIC journal, Academy of Economic Studies - Bucharest, Romania, vol. 21(50), pages 1-41, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:aes:amfeco:v:21:y:2019:i:50:p:41
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.amfiteatrueconomic.ro/temp/Article_2789.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Olivier Furrer & Carolyn P. Egri & David A. Ralston & Wade M. Danis & Emmanuelle Reynaud & Irina Naoumova & Mario Molteni & Arunas Starkus & Fidel León Darder & Marina Dabic & Amandine Furrer-Perrinja, 2010. "Attitudes toward Corporate Responsibilities in Western Europe and in Central and East Europe," Management International Review, Springer, vol. 50(3), pages 379-398, June.
    2. Silvia Romero & Belen Fernandez-Feijoo, 2013. "Effect of Hofstede’s Cultural Differences in Corporate Social Responsibility Disclosure," International Journal of Information Systems and Social Change (IJISSC), IGI Global, vol. 4(1), pages 68-84, January.
    3. Freedman, Martin & Jaggi, Bikki, 2005. "Global warming, commitment to the Kyoto protocol, and accounting disclosures by the largest global public firms from polluting industries," The International Journal of Accounting, Elsevier, vol. 40(3), pages 215-232.
    4. George T. Tsakumis, 2007. "The influence of culture on accountants’ application of financial reporting rules," Abacus, Accounting Foundation, University of Sydney, vol. 43(1), pages 27-48, March.
    5. Vasile Dinu, 2012. "Consumers’ Education and Information from the Perspective of Their Awareness and Ecological Behaviour," The AMFITEATRU ECONOMIC journal, Academy of Economic Studies - Bucharest, Romania, vol. 14(31), pages 5-6, February.
    6. Barbu, Elena M. & Dumontier, Pascal & Feleagă, Niculae & Feleagă, Liliana, 2014. "Mandatory Environmental Disclosures by Companies Complying with IASs/IFRSs: The Cases of France, Germany, and the UK," The International Journal of Accounting, Elsevier, vol. 49(2), pages 231-247.
    7. Robert G. Eccles & Michael P. Krzus & Jean Rogers & George Serafeim, 2012. "The Need for Sector-Specific Materiality and Sustainability Reporting Standards," Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, Morgan Stanley, vol. 24(2), pages 65-71, June.
    8. Simon S. Gao & Saeed Heravi & Jason Zezheng Xiao, 2005. "Determinants of corporate social and environmental reporting in Hong Kong: a research note," Accounting Forum, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(2), pages 233-242, June.
    9. Bebbington, Jan & Kirk, Elizabeth A. & Larrinaga, Carlos, 2012. "The production of normativity: A comparison of reporting regimes in Spain and the UK," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 78-94.
    10. Miska, Christof & Szőcs, Ilona & Schiffinger, Michael, 2018. "Culture’s effects on corporate sustainability practices: A multi-domain and multi-level view," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 53(2), pages 263-279.
    11. Elena Barbu & Pascal Dumontier & Liliana Feleagă & Niculae Feleagă, 2014. "Mandatory environmental disclosures by companies complying with IASs/IFRSs. The cases of France, Germany and UK," Post-Print halshs-01319288, HAL.
    12. Gallego-Álvarez, Prof. Isabel & Ortas, Prof. Eduardo, 2017. "Corporate environmental sustainability reporting in the context of national cultures: A quantile regression approach," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 337-353.
    13. E. Barbu & P. Dumontier & Niculae Feleagă & Liliana Feleagă, 2014. "Mandatory Environmental Disclosures by Companies Complying with IASs/IFRSs: The Cases of France, Germany, and the UK," Post-Print halshs-01025802, HAL.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. repec:aud:audfin:v:21:y:2019:i:50:p:41 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Florence Depoers & Tiphaine Jérôme, 2017. "Environmental expenditure disclosure strategies in a regulated context [Stratégies de publication des dépenses environnementales dans un cadre réglementaire]," Post-Print hal-01576195, HAL.
    3. Radhakrishnan, Suresh & Tsang, Albert & Liu, Rubing, 2018. "A Corporate Social Responsibility Framework for Accounting Research," The International Journal of Accounting, Elsevier, vol. 53(4), pages 274-294.
    4. Viorel Avram & Daniela Artemisa Calu & Valentin Florentin Dumitru & Mădălina Dumitru & Mariana Elena Glăvan & Gabriel Jinga, 2018. "The Institutionalization of the Consistency and Comparability Principle in the European Companies," Energies, MDPI, vol. 11(12), pages 1-24, December.
    5. Mădălina Dumitru & Justyna Dyduch & Raluca-Gina Gușe & Joanna Krasodomska, 2017. "Corporate Reporting Practices in Poland and Romania – An Ex-ante Study to the New Non-financial Reporting European Directive," Accounting in Europe, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(3), pages 279-304, September.
    6. Isabel Gallego‐Álvarez & María Consuelo Pucheta‐Martínez, 2020. "How cultural dimensions, legal systems, and industry affect environmental reporting? Empirical evidence from an international perspective," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(5), pages 2037-2057, July.
    7. Thomas Schneider & Giovanna Michelon & Mari Paananen, 2018. "Environmental and Social Matters in Mandatory Corporate Reporting: An Academic Note," Accounting Perspectives, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 17(2), pages 275-305, June.
    8. Rohaida Abdul Latif & Nurul Huda Yahya & Kamarun Nisham Taufil Mohd & Hasnah Kamardin & Arifatul Husna Mohd Ariffin, 2020. "The Influence of Board Diversity on Environmental Disclosures and Sustainability Performance in Malaysia," International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, Econjournals, vol. 10(5), pages 287-296.
    9. Mihaela Turturea, 2015. "Social and Environmental Reporting as a Part of the Integrated Reporting," Acta Universitatis Agriculturae et Silviculturae Mendelianae Brunensis, Mendel University Press, vol. 63(6), pages 2161-2170.
    10. Ali M Gerged & Christopher J Cowton & Eshani S Beddewela, 2018. "Towards Sustainable Development in the Arab Middle East and North Africa Region: A Longitudinal Analysis of Environmental Disclosure in Corporate Annual Reports," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(4), pages 572-587, May.
    11. Ali Meftah Gerged, 2021. "Factors affecting corporate environmental disclosure in emerging markets: The role of corporate governance structures," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(1), pages 609-629, January.
    12. Ali Meftah Gerged & Eshani Beddewela & Christopher J. Cowton, 2021. "Is corporate environmental disclosure associated with firm value? A multicountry study of Gulf Cooperation Council firms," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(1), pages 185-203, January.
    13. Ntim, Collins G., 2016. "Corporate governance, corporate health accounting, and firm value: The case of HIV/AIDS disclosures in Sub-Saharan Africa," The International Journal of Accounting, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 155-216.
    14. Raphaela Helbig & Sven von Höveling & Andreas Solsbach & Jorge Marx Gómez, 2021. "Strategic analysis of providing corporate sustainability open data," Intelligent Systems in Accounting, Finance and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(3), pages 195-214, July.
    15. Xiaofang Chen & P.R. Weerathunga & Mohammad Nurunnabi & K.M.M.C.B. Kulathunga & W.H.M.S. Samarathunga, 2020. "Influences of Behavioral Intention to Engage in Environmental Accounting Practices for Corporate Sustainability: Managerial Perspectives from a Developing Country," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(13), pages 1-30, June.
    16. Alina Almã?an & Cristina Circa & Mãdãlina Dumitru & Raluca Gina Gu?e & Drago? Marian Mangiuc, 2019. "Effects of Integrated Reporting on Corporate Disclosure Practices regarding the Capitals and Performance," The AMFITEATRU ECONOMIC journal, Academy of Economic Studies - Bucharest, Romania, vol. 21(52), pages 572-572, August.
    17. Samuel Akpovwre Eyenubo & Mudzamir Mohamed & Mohammad Ali, 2017. "An Empirical Analysis on the Financial Reporting Quality of the Quoted Firms in Nigeria: Does Audit Committee Size Matter?," International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, Human Resource Management Academic Research Society, International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, vol. 7(9), pages 50-63, September.
    18. Zouhaira Khelil- Rhouma & Mounira Hamed- Sidhom, 2019. "Corporate social responsibility commitment and environmental disclosures quality: study of the French context," Asian Journal of Empirical Research, Asian Economic and Social Society, vol. 9(11), pages 305-320, November.
    19. Zhihua Cheng & Feng Wang & Christine Keung & Yongxiu Bai, 2017. "Will Corporate Political Connection Influence the Environmental Information Disclosure Level? Based on the Panel Data of A-Shares from Listed Companies in Shanghai Stock Market," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 143(1), pages 209-221, June.
    20. Anis Chariri & Indira Januarti & Etna Nur Afri Yuyetta, 2017. "Firm Characteristics, Audit Committee, and Environmental Performance: Insights from Indonesian Companies," International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, Econjournals, vol. 7(6), pages 19-26.
    21. Michaela Bednárová & Roman Klimko & Eva Rievajová, 2019. "From Environmental Reporting to Environmental Performance," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(9), pages 1-12, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    bioeconomy; sustainability reporting; integrated reporting; clarity of information.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q56 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environment and Development; Environment and Trade; Sustainability; Environmental Accounts and Accounting; Environmental Equity; Population Growth

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aes:amfeco:v:21:y:2019:i:50:p:41. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Valentin Dumitru (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aseeero.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.