Are cultural values sufficient to improve stakeholder engagement human and labour rights issues?

Abstract

[EN] The complexity of the business world and current business models has motivated an increasing number of companies to disclose corporate information through sustainability reports. This reporting and stakeholders engagement may bring shared value to business and society in general although working towards sustainable development goals. This work adopts a new analytical approach by determining the global reporting initiative indicators related to labour practices and decent work, human rights, society, and product responsibility that are reported less frequently by companies. The final objective is to predict the influence that society's cultural values will play as a normative institutional pressure in their evolution. The results obtained for a sample comprising the 201 largest international companies that report in accordance with the recommendations of the G4 Guide in 2015 indicate that more than 50% of these large companies do not report specific mechanisms implemented to avoid violations of human rights and labour rights, or information on incidents related to production and commercial relations. Regulatory pressures associated with cultural values have limited effectiveness as drivers of greater corporate transparency in this area, as they are able to predict a favourable evolution for only 40% of companies that currently do not report.