Suchergebnisse

In European economy system, one part consists of cooperatives. This paper aims to answer the following research question: "May cooperatives be considered an innovative ideal type of socially responsible enterprise?". The goal is to demonstrate that the mutual cooperative enterprises are the ideal type of innovative socially-responsible businesses and as such they have the strategic important vocation to disclose social and environmental information towards both internal and external stakeholders.

Abstract
Education for sustainable development represents a relevant issue that allows Universities to lead and respond to social needs towards a more sustainable life and a complete change in the global paradigm of education and involvement of society. A crucial point for developing a culturally sensitive vision is to deepen the scholars' genuine commitment to sustainability. A pillar of sustainability education should rest on authenticity, intended as coherence between the scholars' research and teaching arguments relative to sustainability and the concrete behaviors held in their professional and personal spheres of life. Starting from this premise, the papers aims to inquire if there is a decoupling between the concepts scholars contribute to promote within the sustainability discourse and the real practice of sustainability in their personal and professional experience. "Is there a missing link between what scholars teach and study, thereby contributing to sustainability research and their daily choices and style of life?" After having presented the research design and the methodological approach adopted to empirically investigate the phenomenon the attention has been focused on the social and environmental accounting research literature, where some contributions claim for the presence of "blue meanies" that invade the world of scholarship, reflection, collegiality and hinder the development of challenges toward sustainability. The preliminary results of the explorative study suggest that a lot of tension related to education for sustainability improve the transfer of sustainable values and attitudes within the scientific community and the students, while several factors hinder sustainable behaviors in the daily professional and personal life of scholars, thus undermining relationships which are a pillar of sustainability.

The implementation of sustainability reporting entails contradictory elements that can involve greenwashing or corporate governance procedures modifications, as well as the mission and accounting system of a company. Based on the premise in this paper, the authors show the end of a first step of research process and answer the question: How does the introduction of a Sustainability Report (SR) transform mission, governance and accountability of enterprises? Attention is focused on the implications of the process of social and sustainable accountability with respect to the values order, structure and tools of governance, and those used to account for and hold the stakeholders accountable for the results, modality, and objectives which characterize the accountability of corporate activity. The deductive research approach is based on an analysis of the literature regarding sustainability development and sustainability reporting. The inductive method is based on the analysis of a research case related to an Italian multi-utility company: SGR Group. The analysis carried out focused on features of the sustainability process started by the company and interpreted it as the challenge launched by the Group to contribute to create, through its own activities, a civil economy which is typical of the corporate culture of responsibility and sustainable market economy built on the civil corporation.