A Country-Comparative Analysis of the Transposition of the EU Non-Financial Directive: An Institutional Approach

Abstract CSR practices and reporting vary across countries and companies. Accouting studies using institutional theory show that even where there are coercive pressures to converge, local practices and traditions are other types of pressures that play a role in maintaining divergence. Similarly, legal studies indicate that harmonisation attempts made by the European Union are usually challenged by States attempting to maintain the status quo of the local context, and this may also apply to CSR reporting harmonization. This research investigates whether or not the institutional pressure toward non-financial reporting harmonization represented by the Directive/2014/95/EU led to convergent behaviours between Member States, at least at the transposition stage. Transposition laws in Member States where CSR has historically played a limited role (i. e. Romania and Bulgaria) are compared with those issued by countries where CSR traditions are much more well developed (France, Belgium and the UK). The analysis focuses on how both mandatory and discretionary requirements have been transposed at a national level. The transposition outcome is analysed in the face of economic-, government- and society-related factors of each country and results show that on several occasions, divergence is catalysed by differences in national business systems. This is aligned with the results of previous studies (e. g. Jamali and Neville, 2011), which argue that historical, cultural, economic and political local contexts mould the CSR conceptualisation existing in a given country, and therefore the convergence of different CSR practices is only apparent.