Relationships between Corporate Social Responsibility, Sustainability Assurance, and Adoption of Integrated Reporting in Public Sector

This study investigates the relationships between Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), sustainability assurance (SA), and integrated reporting (IR) in the public sector. In the public sector, account also matters to the society at large. However, accountability reports are inaccessible apart from being clumsy and complex for readability when presented. Therefore, there is a need for a report modelled in a more transparent, concise, and understandable manner, following amenable disclosing approach. This study uses a mixed-methods approach to analyze the data corpora derived from the content analysis of Brazilian public institutions (BNDES, Caixa, and Correios) for the periods 2015 and 2019. Results indicate that SA is intimately related to CSR inasmuch as it assures information to stakeholders following sustainable footprint, and it has expanded to IR by addressing the challenges of robustness, conciseness and objectivity of presentation. BNDES and Caixa, which are close to full adoption of IR, are far ahead of Correios in relation to adoption of IR, enabling the inference that the public organizations are adopting IR at different paces. This study contributes to pioneering the analysis of Corporate Social Responsibility, Sustainability Assurance, and Integrated reporting, thus advancing in theory and practice of corporate sustainability reporting. Results help in comprehending the potential relationship between CSR, sustainability assurance, and integrated reporting as a means of integration of sustainability reporting in public administration, which addresses the implications of environmental sustainability reporting for the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).