Citation

Tsalis TA, Stylianou MS, Nikolaou IE. Safety Sci. 2018; 109: 313-323.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.ssci.2018.06.015

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

A good and safe workplace is a big challenge for the business community. Different stakeholder groups are placing pressure on firms to demonstrate their commitment to the continual improvement of working conditions. In the light of society's demands, firms design and implement Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) actions as an integral part of the general corporate strategy and they also use various communication channels to inform stakeholders about OHS performance. CSR reporting is a popular communication tool whereby stakeholders can be informed about firms' performance in various aspects of corporate social responsibility. However, a standard accounting methodology to evaluate non-financial information, such as OHS information, does not yet exist. Such a methodology would help managers and stakeholder assess the effectiveness of the OHS management practices adopted by firms. After considering the above weakness, this paper proposes an assessment methodology of OHS information disclosed in the corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports. Based on GRI indicators, this methodology develops an objective scoring system which evaluates the quality and type of OHS information. The proposed methodology was used to investigate the OHS disclosing practices from an international sample of firms assessing the impact of various factors on the quality of the OHS information. In a nutshell, the quality of the OHS disclosures was very poor. The factors which influence the quality of OHS reporting practices are the industry sector, the continent in which firms operate and the OHSAS certification.

Language: en

Keywords

Benchmarking-scoring techniques; Corporate social responsibility reporting; Global Reporting Initiative; Sustainability reports