Corporate social responsibility reporting—Polish and Ukrainian experience

Abstract

An increasing interest in corporate social responsibility (CSR) can be observed on the part of companies in Poland. The legislative changes contained in Directive 2014/95/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council, as well as in the Polish Accounting Act of 15 December 2016, regarding non-financial reporting and with respect to diversity, have increased the awareness and purposefulness of social responsibility among companies. The purpose of the article is to demonstrate the method of presenting financial and non-financial corporate social responsibility data in annual reports of Polish and Ukrainian companies. The research carried out shows that financial statements are the primary source of information on CSR activities in Polish companies. Integrated reports have a small share in the creation of CSR information. A trend exists, however, indicating departure from CSR reporting in dedicated reports, in favour of integrated reports. In contrast, most Ukrainian companies present information on CSR activities in dedicated reports. After the amendment to the Ukrainian Act on Accounting in 2018, increasingly more enterprises have begun to present CSR information in financial statements, in the report-on-operations part.