IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/corsem/v29y2022i3p609-619.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

NGOs, corporate social responsibility and sustainable development trajectories in a new reformative spectrum: ‘New wine in old bottles or old wine in new bottles?’

Author

Listed:
  • Paolo Esposito
  • Gianluca Antonucci

Abstract

Non‐governmental organisations (NGOs) have the potential to combine social objectives with trading activities, while social reporting represents a tool for disclosing NGOs' peculiarities. Although the number of NGOs adopting social reporting is increasing, research is still lacking on the relationships between firms and NGOs and their impacts at the government level, at which policy makers must both favour social/environmental commitments and ensure that NGOs pursue their core objectives, also when carrying out trading activities. This paper investigates the challenges of policy making in this field by analysing NGOs in Italy, the first country to make social reporting compulsory. We randomly selected 20 social reports from the Italian NGO register to analyse eight components regarding the disclosure of their impact. The results show that a compulsory requirement leads to a paradox, given the trade‐off between stakeholder engagement principles on the one hand and disciplinary power and accounting as action at a distance principles on the other, leading NGOs to account for their output rather than for their impact. We thus contribute to the literature about NGOs and corporate social responsibility (CSR), delineating the relevance of a paradox perspective. To the best of our knowledge, this is the only study to apply this perspective to the analysis of CSR and sustainable development trajectories in NGOs.

Suggested Citation

  • Paolo Esposito & Gianluca Antonucci, 2022. "NGOs, corporate social responsibility and sustainable development trajectories in a new reformative spectrum: ‘New wine in old bottles or old wine in new bottles?’," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 29(3), pages 609-619, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:corsem:v:29:y:2022:i:3:p:609-619
    DOI: 10.1002/csr.2223
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/csr.2223
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/csr.2223?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. World Commission on Environment and Development,, 1987. "Our Common Future," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780192820808.
    2. Larraitz Lazkano & Ana Beraza, 2019. "Social Accounting for Sustainability: A Study in the Social Economy," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(24), pages 1-12, December.
    3. Enrico Fontana, 2018. "Corporate Social Responsibility as Stakeholder Engagement: Firm–NGO Collaboration in Sweden," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 25(4), pages 327-338, July.
    4. Paolo Esposito & Spiridione Lucio Dicorato & Emanuele Doronzo, 2021. "The effect of ownership on sustainable development and environmental policy in urban waste management: An explicatory empirical analysis of Italian municipal corporations," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(2), pages 1067-1079, February.
    5. Carroll, Archie B., 1991. "The pyramid of corporate social responsibility: Toward the moral management of organizational stakeholders," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 39-48.
    6. Antonis Skouloudis & Konstantinos Evangelinos & Chrisovaladis Malesios, 2015. "Priorities and Perceptions for Corporate Social Responsibility: An NGO Perspective," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 22(2), pages 95-112, March.
    7. María del Mar Miras‐Rodríguez & Francisco Bravo‐Urquiza & Bernabé Escobar‐Pérez, 2020. "Does corporate social responsibility reporting actually destroy firm reputation?," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 27(4), pages 1947-1957, July.
    8. Torbjörn Tagesson & Veronica Blank & Pernilla Broberg & Sven‐Olof Collin, 2009. "What explains the extent and content of social and environmental disclosures on corporate websites: a study of social and environmental reporting in Swedish listed corporations," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 16(6), pages 352-364, November.
    9. Charles T. Crespy & Van V. Miller, 2011. "Sustainability reporting: A comparative study of NGOs and MNCs," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 18(5), pages 275-284, September.
    10. Paolo Esposito & Spiridione Lucio Dicorato, 2020. "Sustainable Development, Governance and Performance Measurement in Public Private Partnerships (PPPs): A Methodological Proposal," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(14), pages 1-25, July.
    11. Max Baker & Stefan Schaltegger, 2015. "Pragmatism and new directions in social and environmental accountability research," Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 28(2), pages 263-294, February.
    12. Mariëtte van Huijstee & Pieter Glasbergen, 2008. "The practice of stakeholder dialogue between multinationals and NGOs," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 15(5), pages 298-310, September.
    13. Tulin Dzhengiz & Ralf Barkemeyer & Giulio Napolitano, 2021. "Emotional framing of NGO press releases: Reformative versus radical NGOs," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(5), pages 2468-2488, July.
    14. Paolo Esposito & Paolo Ricci, 2021. "Cultural organizations, digital Corporate Social Responsibility and stakeholder engagement in virtual museums: a multiple case study. How digitization is influencing the attitude toward CSR," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 28(2), pages 953-964, March.
    15. Mercedes Alda, 2019. "Corporate sustainability and institutional shareholders: The pressure of social responsible pension funds on environmental firm practices," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(6), pages 1060-1071, September.
    16. Paolo Esposito & Paolo Ricci, 2015. "How to turn public (dis)value into new public value? Evidence from Italy," Public Money & Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(3), pages 227-231, May.
    17. Davide Giacomini & Paola Zola & Diego Paredi & Mario Mazzoleni, 2020. "Environmental disclosure and stakeholder engagement via social media: State of the art and potential in public utilities," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 27(4), pages 1552-1564, July.
    18. G. Lumpkin & Todd Moss & David Gras & Shoko Kato & Alejandro Amezcua, 2013. "Entrepreneurial processes in social contexts: how are they different, if at all?," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 40(3), pages 761-783, April.
    19. Iteke van Hille & Frank G.A. de Bakker & Julie E. Ferguson & Peter Groenewegen, 2019. "Navigating tensions in a cross‐sector social partnership: How a convener drives change for sustainability," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 26(2), pages 317-329, March.
    20. Leanne Johnstone, 2018. "Environmental management decisions in CSR‐based accounting research," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 25(6), pages 1212-1222, November.
    21. Jenny Pope & Alan A.M. Bond & Jean Huge & Angus Morrison-Saunders, 2017. "Reconceptualising sustainability assessment," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/242233, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    22. Maura Campra & Paolo Esposito & Rosa Lombardi, 2020. "The engagement of stakeholders in nonfinancial reporting: New information‐pressure, stimuli, inertia, under short‐termism in the banking industry," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 27(3), pages 1436-1444, May.
    23. Alexander Landau & Janina Rochell & Christian Klein & Bernhard Zwergel, 2020. "Integrated reporting of environmental, social, and governance and financial data: Does the market value integrated reports?," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(4), pages 1750-1763, May.
    24. Eunsoo Choi & Eunji Kim & Inji Kim & Incheol Choi, 2020. "Attitude Toward Social Enterprises: A Comparison between For-Profit and Social Enterprise Employees," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(7), pages 1-10, March.
    25. Paolo Esposito & Valerio Brescia & Chiara Fantauzzi & Rocco Frondizi, 2021. "Understanding Social Impact and Value Creation in Hybrid Organizations: The Case of Italian Civil Service," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(7), pages 1-26, April.
    26. Sara Calvo & Fergus Lyon & Andrés Morales & Jeremy Wade, 2020. "Educating at Scale for Sustainable Development and Social Enterprise Growth: The Impact of Online Learning and a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC)," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(8), pages 1-15, April.
    27. Ignacio Bretos & Millán Díaz-Foncea & Carmen Marcuello, 2020. "International Expansion of Social Enterprises as a Catalyst for Scaling up Social Impact across Borders," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(8), pages 1-22, April.
    28. Bas Arts, 2002. "‘Green alliances’ of business and NGOs. New styles of self‐regulation or ‘dead‐end roads’?," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 9(1), pages 26-36, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Maura Campra & Paolo Esposito & Valerio Brescia, 2023. "Corporate social responsibility and technological perspectives in healthcare: An exploratory analysis of the evolution of the anti‐corruption system through multiple case studies," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 30(6), pages 2816-2829, November.

    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. Paolo Esposito & Emanuele Doronzo & Spiridione Lucio Dicorato, 2023. "The financial and green effects of cultural values on mission drifts in European social enterprises," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(1), pages 1-29, January.
    2. Paolo Esposito & Paolo Ricci, 2021. "Cultural organizations, digital Corporate Social Responsibility and stakeholder engagement in virtual museums: a multiple case study. How digitization is influencing the attitude toward CSR," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 28(2), pages 953-964, March.
    3. Enrico Fontana, 2018. "Corporate Social Responsibility as Stakeholder Engagement: Firm–NGO Collaboration in Sweden," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 25(4), pages 327-338, July.
    4. Ligorio, Lorenzo & Caputo, Fabio & Venturelli, Andrea, 2022. "Sustainability disclosure and reporting by municipally owned water utilities," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    5. Paul Ziek, 2009. "Making sense of CSR communication," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 16(3), pages 137-145, May.
    6. Juan Pablo Valbuena‐Hernandez & Natalia Ortiz‐de‐Mandojana, 2022. "Encouraging corporate sustainability through effective strategic partnerships," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 29(1), pages 124-134, January.
    7. Duygu Turker, 2009. "Measuring Corporate Social Responsibility: A Scale Development Study," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 85(4), pages 411-427, April.
    8. Fabio La Rosa & Sergio Paternostro & Francesca Bernini, 2023. "Corporate and regional governance antecedents of the Legality Rating of private Italian companies," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 27(1), pages 297-329, March.
    9. Filippo Vitolla & Nicola Raimo & Michele Rubino & Antonello Garzoni, 2019. "How pressure from stakeholders affects integrated reporting quality," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 26(6), pages 1591-1606, November.
    10. Marius Banke & Stephanie Lenger & Christiane Pott, 2022. "ESG Ratings in the Corporate Reporting of DAX40 Companies in Germany: Effects on Market Participants," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(15), pages 1-21, August.
    11. Larissa Shnayder & Frank J van Rijnsoever & Marko P Hekkert, 2015. "Putting Your Money Where Your Mouth Is: Why Sustainability Reporting Based on the Triple Bottom Line Can Be Misleading," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(3), pages 1-23, March.
    12. Louisa Pollok & Sebastian Spierling & Hans-Josef Endres & Ulrike Grote, 2021. "Social Life Cycle Assessments: A Review on Past Development, Advances and Methodological Challenges," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(18), pages 1-29, September.
    13. Yanica P. Dimitrova, 2020. "Corporate Social Responsibility and Innovation – the Meaningful Connection," Economic Studies journal, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Economic Research Institute, issue 4, pages 89-108.
    14. Shelby D. Hunt, 2017. "Strategic marketing, sustainability, the triple bottom line, and resource-advantage (R-A) theory: Securing the foundations of strategic marketing theory and research," AMS Review, Springer;Academy of Marketing Science, vol. 7(1), pages 52-66, June.
    15. Giovanni Zampone & Giuseppe Sannino & Isabel‐María García‐Sánchez, 2023. "Exploring the moderating effects of corporate social responsibility performance under mimetic pressures. An international analysis," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 30(1), pages 53-65, January.
    16. Lis, Bettina, 2012. "The Relevance of Corporate Social Responsibility for a Sustainable Human Resource Management: An Analysis of Organizational Attractiveness as a Determinant in Employees’ Selection of a (Potential) Emp," management revue - Socio-Economic Studies, Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG, vol. 23(3), pages 279-295.
    17. Paolo Esposito & Spiridione Lucio Dicorato, 2020. "Sustainable Development, Governance and Performance Measurement in Public Private Partnerships (PPPs): A Methodological Proposal," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(14), pages 1-25, July.
    18. Rosa Maria Dangelico & Pierpaolo Pontrandolfo, 2015. "Being ‘Green and Competitive’: The Impact of Environmental Actions and Collaborations on Firm Performance," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(6), pages 413-430, September.
    19. Lhermie, Guillaume & Wernli, Didier & Jørgensen, Peter Søgaard & Kenkel, Donald & Lin Lawell, C.-Y. Cynthia & Tauer, Loren William & Gröhn, Yrjo Tapio, 2019. "Tradeoffs between resistance to antimicrobials in public health and their use in agriculture: Moving towards sustainability assessment," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 1-1.
    20. José M. Agudo‐Valiente & Concepción Garcés‐Ayerbe & Manuel Salvador‐Figueras, 2015. "Corporate Social Performance and Stakeholder Dialogue Management," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 22(1), pages 13-31, January.

    More about this item

    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:wly:corsem:v:29:y:2022:i:3:p:609-619. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1002/(ISSN)1535-3966 .

    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.