The Social Report in Italian Universities. A management control tool

Objectives. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the level of sustainability disclosure in Italian universities and verify its usefulness in terms of stakeholder engagement and management control. Methodology. The methodological approach adopted is of a qualitative kind. In particular, content analysis is applied to analyze the Italian universities’ social reports (Losito, 1996; Krippendorf, 2004). Findings. The findings show, on the one hand, the benefits in terms of organizational improvements related to the use of social and sustainability reports as management and audit tools and, on the other hand, the benefits in terms of stakeholder engagement. Research limits/implications. This study is focused only to Italian University social reports. Using a similar methodological approach, further research could also be extended to foreign universities. This would allow to find information of a higher qualitative and quantitative level. Originality of the study. Most of the prior Italian research on social reports is normative in nature. Instead, this study is an attempt to analyze the social report of Italian universities in terms of contribution to management control and stakeholder engagement.