Behaviors on Sustainability Accounting. How SMEs play the game.

Sustainability accounting involves the preparation and presentation of a document which reports the interactions and activities of a company with reference to the environment, employees, local community, customers and other stakeholders and, if possible, the consequences of these interactions and activities (Gray, 1995, 2004; Gray, et al. 1995; Gray, et al., 1996; Adams 2002; Roberts, 1992; Roberts et. al, 2006; Cowen, et al., 1987, Guthrie and Parker, 1989). Sustainability accounting is nowadays approached in different ways, paths and fields by either large and small companies. However, despite the type of approach, the subsequent behaviors of companies are quite dissimilar, some of them are just ceremonial and opportunistic, while some others lead to real enhancements in accountability practices, transparency of related disclosure and stakeholders’ engagement (Cisi and Scagnelli, 2009). Scholars agree that small and medium size companies are those who fail to leverage, their efforts in the sustainability field without succeeding in enhancing their non-financial disclosure. Therefore, the aim of this study is to provide more insights about SMEs involved in sustainability practices by focusing on the different behaviors they can achieve in term of sustainability disclosure as well as the underlying variables which may have influence on it. Our empirical evidence is based on all the Italian companies that in 2011 have been certified by adopting both environmental (ISO14001, EMAS) and social (SA8000) management systems; such practices should theoretically led to better disclosure. However, our findings confirm that SMEs lack in providing sustainability disclosure and we demonstrate using a quantitative analysis that the quality of disclosure is influenced by their age and potential control within a Group of companies. As such, we developed a classification of their behavior according to the relevant features that might influence their sustainability disclosure.