Assurance of CSR Reports in Cooperatives: an exploratory case study

Given accountability pressures and the demand for transparency, CSR reporting has proliferated in response to stakeholders’ concerns about environmental and social issues, governance and responsibility. Thus many companies... [ view full abstract ]

Given accountability pressures and the demand for transparency, CSR reporting has proliferated in response to stakeholders’ concerns about environmental and social issues, governance and responsibility. Thus many companies issue CSR reports, which have quickly become the way through which companies show their environmental, social and economic performance to stakeholders. However, researchers have criticised this practice for its accountability and transparency, which have created a need for credible reported information in this area, known as the so-called ‘credibility gap’. Consequently, some companies have started to adopt voluntary external assurance, which enhances the credibility of CSR reports.

Given their social nature, cooperatives are entities where CSR is fundamentally important in the way they operate. Nevertheless, compared to stock companies, few contributions to the assurance subject are found in the literature. Very few efforts have been made to develop a cooperative perspective that identifies an interesting research gap that has not yet been bridged.

Our research focuses on the special case of cooperatives because of the significant link between such entities and CSR. Through an in-depth case study, we investigate motivations, benefits and singularities to adopt assurance practices in one of the biggest cooperatives in the Spanish retail sector, which is listed among the world’s top 300 cooperatives.

Our results showed that the cooperative ideology and values (transparency, trust) were the main motivation to assure a CSR report in a company. This study underlines the improvement of stakeholders’ engagement and greater reliability among stakeholders as benefits of these policies. Finally, the relevant barriers to assure a CSR report are difficulties that stakeholders have understanding it and its cost.