TY - JOUR

T1 - Corporate social responsibility reporting

T2 - a content analysis in family and non-family firms

AU - Campopiano, Giovanna

AU - De Massis, Alfredo Vittorio

PY - 2015/7/1

Y1 - 2015/7/1

N2 - Family firms are ubiquitous and play a crucial role across all world economies, but how they differ in the disclosure of social and environmental actions from non-family firms has been largely overlooked in the literature. Advancing the discourse on corporate social responsibility reporting, we examine how family influence on a business organization affects CSR reporting. The arguments developed here draw on institutional theory, using a rich body of empirical evidence gathered through a content analysis of the CSR reports of 98 large and medium-sized Italian firms. The grounded theory analysis informs and contextualizes several differences in the type and content of corporate social responsibility reports of family and non-family firms. Our findings show that in comparison to non-family firms, family firms disseminate a greater variety of CSR reports, are less compliant with CSR standards and place emphasis on different CSR topics. We thus contribute to family business and corporate social responsibility reporting literatures in several ways, offering implications for practice and outlining promising avenues for future research.

AB - Family firms are ubiquitous and play a crucial role across all world economies, but how they differ in the disclosure of social and environmental actions from non-family firms has been largely overlooked in the literature. Advancing the discourse on corporate social responsibility reporting, we examine how family influence on a business organization affects CSR reporting. The arguments developed here draw on institutional theory, using a rich body of empirical evidence gathered through a content analysis of the CSR reports of 98 large and medium-sized Italian firms. The grounded theory analysis informs and contextualizes several differences in the type and content of corporate social responsibility reports of family and non-family firms. Our findings show that in comparison to non-family firms, family firms disseminate a greater variety of CSR reports, are less compliant with CSR standards and place emphasis on different CSR topics. We thus contribute to family business and corporate social responsibility reporting literatures in several ways, offering implications for practice and outlining promising avenues for future research.

KW - Content Analysis

KW - CSR Reporting

KW - Family Business

KW - Social Responsibility

KW - Family Firms

KW - Italian context

U2 - 10.1007/s10551-014-2174-z

DO - 10.1007/s10551-014-2174-z

M3 - Journal article

VL - 129

SP - 511

EP - 534

JO - Journal of Business Ethics

JF - Journal of Business Ethics

SN - 0167-4544

IS - 3

ER -