Assessing the quality of CSR assurance statements: an analysis among the top cooperative and mutual organisations

The emergence of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has greatly influenced the business communication. Thus, recent decades have witnessed growth in the voluntary adoption of sustainability reporting. This practice has... [ view full abstract ]

The emergence of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has greatly influenced the business communication. Thus, recent decades have witnessed growth in the voluntary adoption of sustainability reporting. This practice has quickly become the main established tool through which companies worldwide communicate their economic, social and environmental performance to stakeholders. However, as sustainability reporting is consolidated, the need for credible information in this area is critical. As a result, companies submit their CSR reports to an assurance process carried out by independent experts, which improve the credibility of such reports.

Some authors have analysed assurance among stock companies and they have evaluated assurance statements to determine what factors influence their quality.

Given the lack of previous studies, this research focuses on the special case of cooperative and mutual organisations. These organisations, in view of their social character, are highly susceptible to CSR.

The aim of this research is to analyse the CSR assurance statements of the 300 largest cooperatives and mutual organisations in the world. By combining both quantitative and qualitative statistical methods, the purpose is to assess assurance statements and to study what factors affect the quality of them.

Results show that the quality of assurance reports depends on the organisation size, country, sector and type of provider.