Social Reporting of Large Firms and SME’s in Italy and Poland. A Cross–Country Analysis

This paper sets out to analyse quality of social reports in two member states of the European Union, Italy and Poland, with a di ff erent level of progress and di ff usion of social reporting practices. In particular, the aim of the paper is twofold: (i) to verify if a di ff erent stage of advance in social reporting practices at country level it is accompanied by an higher or a lower quality of social reports of large firms and SMEs; (ii) basing on the prevalent perception that individuate a “quality gap” between large firms and SMEs, to verify if in most advanced countries in social reporting practices large firms and SMEs have a similar quality level of social reports, while in less advanced countries the di ff erence is more significant. To this end, it was decided to use the GRI database in order to individuate reports to analyse. This choice allowed to select  Italian firms and  Polish firms. The analysis was conducted on GRI indicators included in the reports.