Scope and aim of Non-financial Reporting for Third Sector Organizations Some theoretic paradigms and considerations upon the Italian case

Non-financial reporting, increased in the last decade, as a voluntary accounting system approach developed, thanks to appropriate measures and reporting techniques, to give an account upon organization’s activities related with the identification of socially relevant behaviours. In this sense non-financial reporting is considered as a way for accounting the choice, made by an organization, to go over and above legal requirements, showing the importance given by a company (either private or public) to different issues (environment, workers’ conditions, relations with its stakeholders, etc.). In the case of third sector organizations non-financial reporting can play an important role, due to the fact that it can be seen as a strategic tool that plays an important legitimizing role. The aim of this paper is to go further in this analysis considering in particular the Italian situation where, thanks to the Law 155/06 on social enterprises, there has been the first case of law obligation for writing also non-financial reporting. The aim is to develop some basic theoretic paradigms in order to show what should be reported in a non-financial reporting for a third sector organization, starting from the consideration that nonfinancial reporting might show, in a better way, organization’s performance in terms of social rating. The paper presents some basic theoretical indications that ought to be challenged, but anyway it represents a way of looking in a new way upon the role and importance of non-financial reporting for third sector organizations in Italy, giving some indications on how it should be made and used to improve organizations’ results, being in this way an important tool to measure their performance and helping in legitimising their role and importance.