Performance and (non) mandatory disclosure: the moderating role of the Directive 2014/95/EU (original) (raw)
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Sustainability
This paper investigates the effects of Directive 95/2014/EU on the quality of non-financial information (NFI) disclosed by Portuguese listed companies and explains the reporting practices adopted in this context. For this purpose, a content analysis of non-financial disclosures made a year before (2016) and in the first and second years of the implementation of the Directive (2017 and 2018) was performed. A self-constructed index that covers the disclosure matters required by the Directive was used to measure the quality of NFI. The findings showed that the major effects on the quality of non-financial disclosures were observed in the first year of implementation. Furthermore, it was observed that companies that had high-quality voluntary reporting practices, such as the presentation of a sustainability report, the use of GRI Standards and the certification of NFI, maintained these practices after the Directive. After two years of implementation, there were still companies that did ...
Corporate Ownership and Control, 2019
In October 2014 the European Union issued Directive 2014/95, known as the Directive on Disclosure of Non-financial Information for Large Companies and Groups (all "public interest entities" with more than 500 employees). The Directive, in force since 2017, amended the previous Directive 2013/34 that defined the Framework of the Management Commentary and required large-sized companies to draft and publish a non-financial statement (NFS) including CSR disclosure also known as sustainability disclosure. This information has to be disclosed in a structured way, either in a section of the financial report or by means of a separate report. The framework of this study is the Regulatory Integrated Assessment (RIA), that is "as a tool that does not only improve the quality of legislation but
Administrative Sciences, 2021
This paper explored the effects of new regulation on the disclosure of NFI in two European countries, Italy and Spain. The method used to develop the analysis is mainly qualitative. Content analysis was performed to verify the sustainability indicators disclosed by Italian and Spanish companies, listed on the FTSE MIB and IBEX 35 Indexes, before and after the Directive’s publication and implementation in national legislation. The level of NFI disclosure was scored using a disclosure index. The comparative analysis found a progressive reduction in disclosure levels for Italian companies compared with Spanish companies, for which an expansion of the disclosure was detected. Moreover, a reduced gap between the quantity of NFI reported in the two countries was found. This is one of the few studies to use a 3-year longitudinal analysis to investigate the EU Directive’s impact at the cross-country level.
Corporate Ownership and Control
Directive 2014/95, in force since 2017, is the first European step that requires companies to provide mandatory non-financial information (NFI). The regulation concerns sustainability information with the policy goal of increased accountability and comparability among European “public interest entities” on that matters. According to the framework of Regulatory Integrated Assessment (RIA), the study compares the disclosure before and after the Directive application considering the content (what) and the location of the information in companies’ reports (where). Content analysis is applied to both financial and non-financial reports to create a disclosure scoring index and an overlapping one. Thus to compare the ex-ante analysis to the ex-post by a quantitative scoring system. The research contributes to the debate on the regulatory policy evaluation examining whether the ex-post assessment reveals a change in companies’ reporting behaviour about non-financial information, i.e. if the...
2018
Non-financial disclosure has become increasingly popular, as it can satisfy the information needs of a growing range of stakeholders. Because traditional financial reports cannot provide comprehensive accountability, several frameworks and guidelines for facilitating non-financial information disclosure have been developed. Recently, the European Union issued Directive 2014/95/EU (EU Directive) and subsequent guidelines (EU Guidelines 2017/C215/01 [EUG]) to mandate European entities of public interest to convey non-financial information to improve such organizations' accountability toward their stakeholders. This paper studies the European stage of non-financial reporting from a regulatory and practical point of view. To this end, the first research objective is to analyze the elements that the EUG have in common with the IIRF and the GRI 4 guidelines. Second, the paper proposes a first analysis to assess the compliance to the EUG by performing a content analysis on a sample of annual reports and integrated reports (IR) drafted by the 50 biggest European companies. The results highlight that the content elements required by the Directive exceed the requirements of the two frameworks and that there is already a high level of compliance by European big companies with the EUG. More specifically, particular attention is devoted to Social, Employee and Environmental Matters. Accordingly, the companies demonstrated a common awareness of the necessity to provide an exhaustive amount of social and environmental disclosure in order to maintain legitimacy. Also the disclosure on Principal Risks and Their Management is widespread to meet investors' and stakeholders' requirements in recent years with respect to the general level of risk disclosure provided by companies.
The Role of Existing Regulation and Discretion in Harmonising Non-Financial Disclosure
Accounting in Europe, 2019
The 2014/95/EU Directive is the first regulatory attempt to harmonise large entities' nonfinancial reporting. It sets minimum requirements whilst leaving discretion to Member States in transposing relevant aspects of disclosure. The transposition is the first moment in which the Directive directly impacts on companies and determines whether they will be complying with more similar rules. This study uses the fit/misfit theory to assess the achievement of formal harmonisation between the UK, France and Italy. An analysis of domestic regulations shows that discretion favoured convergence of rules but also the presence of old and new differences. All countries had to engage in some degree of change to be compliant. The UK and France had a high degree of legal fit and used discretion to limit adaptation costs by minimising the legal intervention and over-implementing the Directive respectively. Italy instead welcomed the legal misfit and greatly departed from its previous regulation.
Disclosure Dynamics and Non-Financial Reporting Analysis. The Case of Romanian Listed Companies
Sustainability, 2021
New challenges and perspectives to improve non-financial reporting and the disclosure of environmental, social, and governance indicators have been launched towards the development horizon of Romanian public interest entities, implementing the provisions of Directive 2014/95/EU in the local regulatory framework. In this context, our approach focused on the content analysis of the non-financial information reported by listed companies, for the period 2017–2019, and the measure of the average disclosure degree on environmental, social, economic, and governance (ESEG) indicators. To measure the average degree of disclosure, a composite index was constructed through the main component analysis for categorical data that allowed the classification of sampled companies by sustainable performance. The results showed a slight increase in the ESEG disclosure index at the level of the sampled companies, from 47 units in 2017 to 52 units in 2019, several companies “went ahead” and others “recov...
The Evolution of Non-Financial Disclosure in a European Perspective
papers.ssrn.com
The special issue on Corporate Social Responsibility Papers: The potential to contribute to the implementation and integration of EU strategies (CORE) collects a selection of papers presented at the Marie Curie Conference CORE organised by FEEM. The CORE conferences Series addresses the question of the goals achievement of the EU strategies. The main EU strategies (Lisbon, Sustainability, Integration) can be successful if their implementation involves adequately and effectively the business sector, non-profit partnerships and networks, local communities and civil society. In this setting CSR holds the potential to stimulate corporate contributions to the implementation and integration of the mentioned EU strategies and can be tested as a policy tool.
International Journal of Disclosure and Governance, 2004
Although self-regulation has proven to be effective for the development of voluntary corporate-governance codes, the results of this study indicate that leading European companies are not yet too concerned about compliance with these codes. While self-regulation appears to be ineffective to change the disclosure practices of companies, the study concludes that factors relevant for choosing regulatory forms and the impact and risks involved with non-compliance of companies with voluntary codes have determined the Winter Report's emphasis on selfregulation.