Title: Assessing the Italian benefit corporation disclosure: a content analysis

Authors: Rosa Palladino; Pasquale Sasso; Sofia Profita; Rosalinda Carusone; Fabio Fiano; Manlio Del Giudice

Addresses: Department of Economics, Quantitative Methods and Business Strategies, University of Milan-Bicocca – Piazza, Dell'Ateneo Nuovo, 1 – 20126 – Milan, Italy ' Department of Economics, Università degli Studi della Campania Luigi Vanvitelli, 81043 Capua, Italy ' Financial Sponsors Group of Santander Bank, 45 E 53rd St., New York, NY 10022, USA ' Department of Law, University of Naples 'Parthenope' – via G. Parisi, No. 13, 80132, Naples, Italy ' Link Campus University, Via del Casale di San Pio V, 44 - 00165 Roma (Italy) ' Link Campus University, Via del Casale di San Pio V, 44, 00165 Roma, Italy

Abstract: Responsible business actions improve corporate performance and contribute to sustainable development practices. These actions must not only be implemented, but also communicated. Therefore, the use of reporting tools based on non-financial data should increase the ability of the company management to implement an integrated strategy. In fact, the legislator has decided to introduce a new corporate formula more oriented towards sustainability: the benefit corporation (CB). This corporate form requires higher standards of accountability to demonstrate their positive impact on society. This document, through a qualitative analysis of some Italian CBs' reports, aims to investigate the effectiveness of the BIA framework to report the 'benefit' objectives. The study shows that the CBs maintain a formal commitment on the disclosure plan and denounces the lack of planning strategies relating to the disclosure provided. This analysis focused on the compatibility of the IIRC framework for integrated reporting to improve the quality of reporting.

Keywords: benefit corporations; B impact assessment; BIA; framework; integrated reporting; disclosure; international integrated reporting council; IIRC.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMFA.2022.123888

International Journal of Managerial and Financial Accounting, 2022 Vol.14 No.3, pp.217 - 235

Received: 04 May 2021
Accepted: 25 Jan 2022
Published online: 04 Jul 2022 *

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