The human “capital” towards the integrated reporting. An exploratory study

ABSTRACT: In the framework of socially responsible companies, the disclosure of human “capital” (HC) practices should be fundamental to assess the organisation’s ability to create value over time. Despite stakeholder management theory places human resources among the primary stakeholders of every organisations, the non-financial reporting (NFR) of human resources information is far from being unique and linear, due to the existence of several reporting guidelines. In this paper, the focus is on NFR in disclosing HC information. In particular, two internationally recognised guidelines: the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and the Integrated Reporting (IR) were mainly considered. The study presents a double qualitative content analysis aimed at better delineate the concept of HC in NFR. First, it elaborates several comparison matrices to check the fitting level on HC issues between theory, regulations, and practices, also trying to identify the main lacks and constraints. Secondly, the study applies an analytical framework (with specific attention on social equity and gender issues as components of HC) to generically assess the HC disclosure in a testing sample of 18 NFR provided by international food companies listed in France, Italy, and the Netherlands, three leader countries in the sector. This paper contributes to a not well-explored research branch joinlty comparing HC theory with practionners guidelines and social equity issues of the food sector. The food industry one of the most massive sectors worldwide represents a valuable field of analysis also because of its several and direct implications on social and environmental sustainability and human rights protection. Despite the limited sample of assessed companies and the use of only qualitative methods, the paper shows that, both in theory and practice, training and know-how and equity and ethical issues are the most matched and disclosed categories of HC. Nonetheless, most of the provided HC disclosures appear excessively generic missing in-depth information. Besides, many problems in terms of gender equality can be observed, firstly the women exclusion from training and the more powerful positions within the companies. The initial research outcomes highlight that identifying, measuring and evaluating the HC is challenging and that companies tend to provide hybrid models of NFR mixing different standards. Accordingly, the firms should receive more specific guidelines to better disclose on HC and social equity issues according to the HC IR definition.