Disclosing Non-Financial Information in Companies’ Reports in Croatia

Abstract

Subsequent to the provision of the Directive 2014/95/EU requiring disclosure of non-financial and diversity information of all EU Member States companies with 500 and more employees, a research was conducted at the beginning of 2016 on a sample of sustainability reports disclosed by Croatian companies in 2014 that had registered 400 and more employees in that same year, with an assumption of their growth by 2018 in terms of the number of their employees. This research was focused on the structure of the indicators identified in non-financial reports, viewed as content-oriented and entry-oriented measures (attributes). The indicators analyzed were extracted from the original research done on the quality of non-financial reports of the companies in Croatia registering 400 and more employees. The method employed was a conMilena Peršić, Lahorka Halmi 182 tent analysis. The results show that many of the disclosed sustainability indicators are "story-tellers", meaning that they are past-oriented and qualitatively stated, suggesting that activities concerning sustainability in company are present, but no cause-effect relationships are presented therein. The results point to a need for significant improvements in defining a minimum of requirements for the indicators disclosed in non-financial reports. Since very few indicators reflect all of the attributes assessed in this research, there is a need for finding ways to capture relevant data in accounting of enterprises, so as to establish a requirement for comparability of non-financial information disclosed in sustainability reports and thus bring about the requirements of the Directive 2014/95/EU.

Non-Financial Information Disclosures and Environmental Protection—Evidence from Romania and Greece

“…Persic and Halmi [19] studied the manner in which Croatian companies with at least 400 employees reported information according to the Directive. The data showed that many of the disclosed sustainability indicators are "story-tellers", meaning that they are past-oriented and qualitatively stated.…”

Accounting Information for Managing Sustainable Health-Tourism Product in the Tourism Destination

“…Reliability, completeness, consistency, comparability and connectivity are important qualitative characteristics of the information (IR 2016, 20) which should be followed in the process of preparing the destination's integrated report. Integrated reporting should also be focused on demonstrating a compliance of the achieved results with legal and other requirements and health tourism development strategic goals, defined in the framework of relevant national and regional strategic documents, as well as achieved level of practice development (Peršić 2012;Peršić and Janković 2012;Peršić and Janković 2014;Peršić, Vlašić and Janković 2016;Peršić and Halmi 2016;Peršić and Vlašić 2017).…”

The Significance of the Gri (Global Reporting Initiative) Standard in Reporting of Environmental Information. The Analysis of Polish Banking Sector in the Face of Regulatory Changes

“…The recent rise of stakeholder demand for non-financial reporting is one of the most pronounced consequences of the growing emphasis on social and ecological aspects of business operation as such (Stępień, 2015, p. 19). Professional literature provides a broad overview of problems related to disclosure of social and environmental information by business organisations (Krasodomska, 2017;Gabrusewicz, 2010;Samelak, 2013;Mazurczak, 2012;Fijałkowska, 2013;Peršić & Halmi, 2016;Haller, van Staden & Landis, 2016;Haller, Link & Gross, 2017). However, certain gaps can be identified in the evaluation of non-financial reporting by large financial institutions, particularly those in the banking segment of the economy.…”