Defining a Methodology for Social Audit Based on the Social Responsibility Level of Corporations

Abstract

Currently, global corporations face a series of challenges in terms of accountability towards the environment and society. One of the ways by which they could deal with these challenges is to introduce the use of social auditing to assist them to improve their reputation and the way they are perceived by all their stakeholders. Unfortunately, there is still no standard methodology for corporations to prepare their social audit report. This chapter seeks to fill this gap. It proposes a standardized methodology based on a disclosure checklist simulated on a range of sustainability/socio-environmental/corporate social responsibility set of information which companies provide in their annual reports. This methodology was developed based on a disclosure analysis using a sample of annual reports of the most responsible corporations worldwide. It was expected that these role model corporations when it comes to the best practice follow the same trendline regarding disclosures on sustainability/social responsibility information.