Title: Corporate Social Responsibility performance assessment by using a linear combination of key indicators

Authors: Antonio Focacci

Addresses: Faculty of Economics, Management Department, University of Bologna, Piazza Scaravilli, 2, 40126 Bologna, Italy

Abstract: The progressive commitment towards a more sustainable model of current civil/economic societies has come to prominence, both in industrialised and developing countries. This paradigm encounters widespread acceptance encompassing the forms of external communication and the evaluation of specific business performances not just related to merely economic/financial information. As a consequence, several dedicated efforts have been made to communicate such a different awareness. Starting from these premises, the paper proposes a method to calculate the Global Corporate Social Responsibility Rate (GCSRR) of a company based on a linear combination of financial statement figures, environmental data and social values indicators. To present a synthetic comparative evaluation model and without any pretension to be exhaustive, some explanatory calculations are reported as an illustrative application of the method.

Keywords: accounting; CSR rate; corporate social responsibility; linear combination; management systems; performance measurement; sustainability management; performance evaluation; key indicators; sustainable development; financial statements; environmental data; social values.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBGE.2011.039968

International Journal of Business Governance and Ethics, 2011 Vol.6 No.2, pp.183 - 202

Published online: 08 May 2011 *

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