Il processo di revisione dei bilanci di sostenibilità. Un’analisi delle società quotate italiane

During the last years, worldwide companies have paid increasing attention to corporate responsibility issues and CSR Reports, trying to leverage on their potential benefits toward company value creation. This value is strictly linked to the information reliability. In this sense, the purpose of this paper is to investigate how Italian listed companies are approaching the phenomenon of corporate social disclosure assurance. This is one of the few empirical studies dedicated to this topic. Despite the increasing importance recognized by companies, all over the world, to Sustainability and Social disclosure assurance, it seems relatively under-researched in the academic arena and our contribution aims to fill this gap, at least in relation to the Italian market. We found evidence that the companies listed in the Italian Stock Exchange Market are more and more interested in preparing and assuring their Sustainability Reports, often calling the Annual Report assuror. These evidences are consistent with the international trends monitored by literature about CSR and assurance.