Corporate Sustainability Reporting and Stakeholder Accountability. A Review of the Italian Listed Companies’ Sustainability Reports

The purpose of this study is to assess how Italian companies (listed on the Italian Stock Exchange) that produce sustainability reports (SRs)–on the basis of the Global Reporting Initiative guidelines–identify and describe the stakeholders to whom they consider themselves responsible, the various methods of engagement, the key issues and critical points that arise during the involvement of stakeholders, and the corporate response in their sustainability reports. The first part of this article analyses the link between accountability and stakeholder engagement. The second part of the study is dedicated to the analysis of a sample SR with reference only to information dealing with stakeholder engagement. The analysis revealed the corporate need to manage the expectations of “primary” stakeholders. Less evident is the desire to enable constant interaction and an open relationship with all the stakeholders on whom corporate operations may have an impact. Our findings indicate that corporate sustainability reports seem to have little to do with stakeholder accountability and instead could be considered a useful tool for stakeholder management.