Sustainability Accounting and Corporate Social Responsibility in Turkey and in Its Region

Research question: As a newly developing area, this paper aims investigate recent developments and applications of social responsibility practices in Turkey and in the neighboring regions in a comparative way. Motivation: The sustainability reporting is relatively a new subject in Turkey both in practice and in academic circles. The introduction of Corporate Social Responsibility as a concept in Turkey does not have a long history. The last five years witnessed a significant change in terms of corporate social responsibility (CSR) applications. Increasing number of companies started to implement sustainability accounting and corporate social responsibility practices. Companies began to adopt corporate social responsibility by considering it as a tool for medium- and long-term success. As a reflection of growing interest in sustainability and CSR, the number of NGO’s and consultancy firms operating in this field has also increased recently. In 2014, Sustainability Index was created within the Istanbul Stock Exchange (ISE). Idea: The understanding of the social responsibility applications and priority areas vary between different countries depending on their economic, social and political dynamics. In order to see the intra-regional variations, in this paper, we compare corporate social responsibility and sustainability applications in Turkey and in the neighboring regions by selecting Russia and Greece in the same region. Data: For the analysis, we collect recent sustainability reports of Turkish companies from GRI database and make a content analysis to evaluate practical applications of CSR and sustainability in Turkey. Then, we discuss corporate social responsibility applications in Russia and Greece. In the first part of our paper we examine corporate social responsibility and sustainability applications in Turkey by making an analysis of sustainability reports and CSR activities in Turkey. In the following part we discuss corporate social responsibility applications in the neighboring regions and make a comparison with Turkey. To this end, sustainability reports of Russian Federation and Greek companies in GRI database are analyzed for CSR activities. In the final part of our paper, we make a comparative analysis of CSR applications in Turkey and in the neighboring regions. Findings: The final analysis of CSR in Turkey and neighboring countries supports the idea that understanding of CSR varies in different countries depending on their social structure and economic development level.