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CCIJ
21,2
230
Received 28 September 2014
Revised 22 January 2015
8 July 2015
2 October 2015
Accepted 24 November 2015
Corporate Communications: An
International Journal
Vol. 21 No. 2, 2016
pp. 230-245
© Emerald Group Publishing Limited
1356-3289
DOI 10.1108/CCIJ-09-2014-0062
Harmonization and differences
in CSR reporting of US
and German companies
Analyzing the role of global reporting
standards and country-of-origin
Sabine Einwiller and Christopher Ruppel
Department of Communication, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria, and
Alexandra Schnauber
Department of Communication,
Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to extend the theoretical discussion and empirical evidence on
harmonization as well as differences in CSR reporting, and to dismantle inconsistencies owing to the
idiosyncratic methods applied in previous studies. While institutional and cultural differences suggest
country-of-origin effects, the proliferation of global standards for CSR reporting is expected to promote
harmonization.
Design/methodology/approach – Based on a literature review hypotheses concerning
harmonization and country-of-origin effects were derived. Reports were content analyzed using the
software Leximancer. Harmonization effects were examined by comparing reports of companies that
adhered to the standards by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and UN Global Compact and those
that did not declare to do so. Country-of-origin effects were explored by comparing reports of German
and US multinational enterprises (MNEs).
Findings – The study reveals that there are comparatively greater similarities between reports issued
by MNEs that adhere to global standards, especially GRI. Results also reveal some country-of-origin
effects. While German MNEs report more on environmental issues, US MNEs have a stronger focus on
society, especially the community.
Originality/value – The study contributes to the limited evidence for harmonization in CSR reporting
due to the adherence to global reporting standards. Because comparability is important for many
stakeholders addressed by the reports the findings are valuable for stakeholder management, but also
for the initiatives who aim to enhance transparency and comparability.
Keywords Content analysis, Corporate social responsibility, CSR reporting, Harmonization,
UN Global Compact, Global Reporting Initiative
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
The globalization of the economy, increased social and environmental awareness,
media attention and pressure of multiple stakeholder groups have raised the
importance of sustainability and corporate social responsibility (CSR). At its core, CSR
reflects the social imperatives and consequences of business success (Matten and
Moon, 2008) and concerns “[s]ocietal expectations of corporate behavior” (Whetten
et al., 2002, p. 374). Answering these claims by corporate stakeholders is considered a
main rationale for engaging in CSR reporting[1], in order to legitimize corporate
behavior and its impacts on society (Brown and Deegan, 1998; O’Donovan, 2002;
Dowling and Pfeffer, 1975). Suchman (1995) defined legitimacy as an assumption or
generalized perception that the actions of a company are proper or appropriate within CSR reporting
some socially constructed system of norms, values, beliefs and definitions. The aims to of US and
influence stakeholders’ perceptions and to strengthen stakeholder-company
relationships as well as corporate reputation (e.g. Bhattacharya et al., 2009; Clarke
German
and Gibson-Sweet, 1999) underscore the importance of CSR reporting for corporate companies
communication (Hooghiemstra, 2000).
As discussed in institutional and legitimacy theory, the company operates within 231
the bounds and norms of society (Brown and Deegan, 1998), and CSR reporting may be
seen primarily as a reaction to factors and pressures in the company’s environment
(Neu et al., 1998; Walden and Schwartz, 1997). However, societal bounds, norms and
stakeholder expectations differ between countries and regions. Scholars have
emphasized the influence of a country’s historic-cultural background, cultural values,
differing institutional norms as well as varying governmental policies and resources on
how business ethics and CSR are understood (Kampf, 2007; Matten and Moon, 2008;
Neu et al., 1998; Palazzo, 2002). This promotes strong country-of-origin effects in CSR
reporting (e.g. Chen and Bouvain, 2009; Golob and Bartlett, 2007; Kolk, 2005, 2008;
Newson and Deegan, 2002; Van Der Laan Smith et al., 2005).
Considering stakeholder demands and expectations in CSR reporting is important in
order to identify what is material, meaning crucial for stakeholders’ assessments and
decisions (Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), 2011, 2013). However, if companies give
more weight to the demands of certain stakeholders, e.g. those in their home country,
CSR reporting runs the risk of impaired comparability. Comparability is, however,
important to most users of CSR reports who are interested in the CSR performance of
not just one company. These are financial and sustainability analysts, investors,
regulators or global NGOs who often conduct comparative assessments based on CSR
reports, as well as others who seek transparent, comparable and consistent CSR
information (Hockerts and Moir, 2004; Langer, 2006).
Assisting organizations in accomplishing higher levels of comparability and
transparency in CSR reporting is a declared goal of international initiatives like the
Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) (GRI,
2011, 2013; UN Global Compact, 2013). Although reporting standards like the GRI
framework are not without criticism (e.g. Coombs and Holladay, 2013; Knebel and Seele,
2015), their application is expected to foster harmonization in CSR reporting. Adhering
to the same ground rules in preparing the reports should indeed promote greater
comparability (Fortanier et al., 2011; Sherman and DiGuilio, 2010). Harmonization
through reporting standards may also mitigate biased selective reporting. Given
limited requirements companies can define CSR at their sole discretion (Coombs and
Holladay, 2013) and focus on favorable topics while deliberately omitting others
(Knebel and Seele, 2015). Such obfuscation would become more apparent, if most
companies reported on the same range of topics.
Evidence for harmonization that is based on rigorous research is however scarce
and mixed (see below). With this research we attempt to dismantle inconsistencies
owing to the idiosyncratic approaches and methods applied in previous studies and to
extend the empirical evidence on harmonization as well as country-specific differences
in CSR reporting. In line with most previous research we focus on market-listed
multinational enterprises (MNEs) that experience particular pressure to act ecologically
and socially responsible worldwide (Christmann, 2004). The empirical study includes
reports for the year 2011 and tests for harmonization effects due to adherence to GRI
and membership in the UNGC. Beyond testing for harmonization we advance the
CCIJ scholarship regarding the causes of country-of-origin effects. Comparing a liberal
21,2 market economy (the USA) and a coordinated market economy (Germany) we derive
and test precise hypotheses concerning country-specific differences in CSR reporting.
To align our research with previous studies, we used the software Leximancer (Smith
and Humphreys, 2006) to content analyze the CSR reports (see Chen and Bouvain,
2009), while harmonization tendencies were analyzed following the procedure reported
232 by Fortanier et al. (2011).
The central research questions addressed by the empirical study are:
RQ1. Does companies’ adherence to CSR reporting standards (GRI and UNGC)
foster the harmonization of CSR reporting by US and German MNEs?
RQ2. Does companies’ country-of-origin condition persisting differences in CSR
reporting by US and German MNEs?
In the following, we derive hypotheses concerning harmonization and concurrent
differences in CSR reporting. We elaborate on CSR reporting and reporting standards
first, followed by the role of companies’ geographical origin before presenting the
empirical study and discussing its results.

CSR reporting – harmonization and differences

CSR reporting
By means of CSR reporting companies provide non-financial information relating to their
interaction with their physical and social environment to their diverse stakeholders
(Hackston and Milne, 1996) in the form of stand-alone reports, as part of their annual report
or increasingly as part of an integrated report (Eccles and Krzus, 2010). CSR reporting
typically follows the TBL approach (Elkington, 1997), which is supposed to estimate the
added value a company creates not just economically, but also ecologically and socially.
The TBL concept served as the basis for the development of the GRI reporting framework
(Sherman, 2009). The European Commission has been explicitly asking companies to
publish a TBL in their annual reports for more than ten years. In April 2014 the European
Commission (2014) passed a directive obliging large publicly traded companies to report
on the social and environmental impacts of their business activities. To do so, companies
are being encouraged to use standardized frameworks such as UNGC or GRI.
A large number of businesses already report on their environmental and social
performance over and above meeting their financial reporting obligations. According to a
2013 survey by KPMG, 93 percent of the world’s largest 250 companies report on CSR,
and almost three quarters of the 100 largest companies in 41 countries do so (KPMG,
2013). The rise in reporting practices does however not lead to increased confidence in the
ability or intention of companies to take CSR seriously (Dando and Swift, 2003) and to
report in an open and honest way. Waddock and Googins (2011) argue that the rise
in reporting goes along with even more skepticism and scrutiny among stakeholders.
One central point of criticism concerns the selectivity in CSR reporting concerning what
to report on, which hampers comparability and transparency.

Effects of global reporting standards on CSR reporting

With the aim to institutionalize CSR and CSR reporting a number of initiatives and
organizations have undertaken work to develop global standards for CSR reporting
which can be classified into normative frameworks, process guidelines and
management systems (Ligteringen and Zadek, 2005). With over 8,000 corporate
participants, the UNGC is the largest normative framework providing guidance to CSR reporting
organizations for good corporate social performance (www.unglobalcompact.org/). of US and
Among the process guidelines, the GRI is most influential (e.g. Brown et al., 2009;
Knebel and Seele, 2015)[2]. It has developed a reporting framework that is intended
German
to be analogous to accounting principles in financial reporting (Sherman and companies
DiGuilio, 2010) and guides companies on what and how to report.
Both initiatives prescribe a range of CSR topics which companies should address in 233
their reports, and also outline a structure how to report. The UNGC policy on
communicating progress (COP) requires, at least, a statement by the CEO expressing
continued support, a description of practical actions in the four issue areas and a
measurement of outcomes. To do so, members can but do not have to use process
guidelines like GRI. The GRI framework offers a much more detailed list of
performance indicators over and above requirements to report on strategy and profile.
The GRI issued its third generation (G3) guidelines in 2006 and a revised version (G3.1)
in 2011. The G4 framework was announced in 2013.
With its extensive reporting framework, the GRI aims to promote transparency and to
enhance comparability over time and across companies. Furthermore, the GRI guidelines
put strong emphasis on considering stakeholder expectations, which is accentuated in
the principles “stakeholder inclusiveness” and “materiality”. Stakeholder inclusiveness
implies that stakeholder expectations and interests are a key reference point and that the
“organization should identify its stakeholders and explain in the report how it has
responded to their reasonable expectations and interests” (GRI, 2011, p. 10). Materiality
means that the topics covered should “reflect the organization’s significant economic,
environmental and social impacts” or that they would “substantively influence the
assessments and decisions of stakeholders” (GRI, 2011, p. 8).
This raises the question of whether the CSR reports of companies that adhere to these
standards are indeed more similar and thus more comparable. Adhering to the detailed
guidelines should foster harmonization in a way that similar topics are covered in the CSR
reports. Closely considering stakeholder expectations may on the other hand promote
differences in reporting, because expectations diverge between countries. In fact, findings
on harmonization through global standards are inconclusive. Based on content analysis of
non-financial reports of Fortune Global 250 firms for the year 2004, Fortanier et al. (2011)
find evidence for harmonization in reporting for those companies that adhere to global
CSR standards (GRI G2, and UNGC, among others) concerning issues on the social and
environmental dimension of CSR reporting. Chen and Bouvain (2009), on the other hand,
who compared CSR reports from companies headquartered in the USA, UK, Australia and
Germany for the year 2006, report similarities as a result of companies’ membership in the
UNGC only in the areas of environment and workers (effects of GRI were not tested).
In their content analysis of GRI reports for 2012 that hold the highest reporting level
(G3.1, A+), Knebel and Seele (2015) find considerable differences regarding the frequency
GRI specified indicators are reported. Finally, Sherman and DiGuilio (2010), who
compared selected reports from identical industries, conclude that they are “unable to
answer that question [whether GRI reports become more comparable] definitively” (p. 67).
These inconclusive findings may result from different samples, years of reporting as
well as different methods applied. For example, Fortanier et al. (2011) deductively
aligned their variables with the TBL using manual coding to identify CSR reports’
content, while Chen and Bouvain (2009) derived the variables inductively using the
software Leximancer. Then again Knebel and Seele (2015) based their analysis on
the coding of indicators specified in the GRI guidelines. Furthermore, their analysis
CCIJ focussed on a comparison within GRI G3.1 reports, and did not aim at testing whether
21,2 adherence to the standard leads to relatively more comparability than not adhering
to it. The same holds for the study by Sherman and DiGuilio (2010).
Despite these inconsistencies in previous findings, there seems to be at least some
evidence that adherence to global CSR standards fosters harmonization when
compared with no adherence. This harmonization effect should be particularly likely to
234 occur in the case of MNEs, the focus of our research. Because MNEs are part of a global
social system and should address concerns by stakeholders worldwide (Newson and
Deegan, 2002), the standards can be expected to reduce country-of-origin effects. This
leads to the following hypotheses:
H1a. CSR reports by companies adhering to the GRI guidelines are more similar
than CSR reports of companies not adhering to GRI guidelines.
H1b. CSR reports by UNGC members are more similar than CSR reports by
companies that do not participate in the UNGC.

Effects of geographical origin on CSR reporting

As mentioned in the introduction, it is widely argued that CSR, the activities and the
reporting thereof, differ depending on the country in which the business is headquartered
(e.g. Fifka, 2013a; Golob and Bartlett, 2007; Kampf, 2007; Matten and Moon, 2008).
A number of studies support country-of-origin effects in CSR reporting. Kolk (2005)
identified differences in the quantity and type of information in environmental reports of
Fortune 250 companies from Europe, USA and Japan, and in their inclusion of corporate
governance items in sustainability reporting. Analyses of annual reports from 1998/1999
revealed differences concerning the quantity and quality of the included corporate social
information, for utility companies in the USA and Scandinavia (Van der Laan Smith et al.,
2005) as well as for multinational companies headquartered in Australia, Singapore and
South Korea (Newson and Deegan, 2002). Chen and Bouvain (2009), finally, conducted a
comprehensive analysis of stand-alone CSR reports from USA, UK, Australian and
German companies and conclude “that businesses from different countries vary
significantly in the extent to which they promote CSR and the CSR issues that they choose
to emphasize” (pp. 312-313).
As discussed in institutional and legitimacy theory, differences in CSR between
countries can be ascribed to national, longstanding and historically deep-rooted
institutions (Aguilera and Jackson, 2003; Matten and Moon, 2008) and thereby to
different social and stakeholder expectations. Although MNEs should not just address
the stakeholder expectations and demands in their home country, as mentioned before,
previous research shows that the country-of-origin effect is in fact prevalent, also in
CSR reports of MNEs. Drawing on the varieties of capitalism approach (VoC) (Hall and
Soskice, 2001), we clarify the differences between a liberal market economy, the USA,
and a coordinated market economy, Germany, on the three dimensions of the TBL, and
derive hypotheses regarding differences in CSR reporting.
Social dimension. A key distinguishing characteristic between liberal and coordinated
market economies is the economic and socio-political engagement of the state (Matten
and Moon, 2008; Fifka, 2013a). While the German state cares comparatively well for the
safeguarding of its citizens, social security benefits in the USA are more limited.
Therefore, in the USA the state relies more on individual initiatives of private agents.
According to an OECD study (Adema et al., 2011), private social expenditures sum up to
nearly 40 percent of the total (public and private) social spending in the USA (highest CSR reporting
value among examined OECD countries). In Germany, private expenditures make up of US and
only 10 percent, which is close to OECD average. This also reflects a stable cultural
difference, namely that Germans rely more on governmental solutions for social issues
German
whereas Americans favor private initiatives (Fifka, 2013b). The scope to be committed companies
to society and the corresponding societal expectations are therefore greater for US than
for German companies (Kampf, 2007; Matten and Moon, 2008; Fifka, 2013b). 235
Correspondingly, Fifka (2011) finds that US companies are more engaged in social
areas like health and pension as well as infrastructure projects, which are traditionally
seen as government’s responsibility in Germany. In general, many social issues that are
regulated in Germany by respective coordination and control systems would be
understood as part of explicit CSR in the USA (Matten and Moon, 2008).
This suggests that US companies report more about social topics, since they have
not only developed a stronger commitment historically, but also have a greater margin
of discretion to act in a socially responsible way. This leads to the following hypothesis:
H2. CSR reports by US companies exhibit a greater focus on social aspects than CSR
reports by German companies.

Environmental dimension. Institution-based differences between Germany and the

USA are also prevalent with respect to the environmental dimension of the TBL.
In Germany the environmental movement of the 1970s and 1980s brought forth a new
force in German politics, the Green Party. The Greens could quickly enter federal state
parliaments, and from 1998 until 2005 they were part of the federal government. Based
on an analysis of environmental politics in Germany, Japan and the USA Schreurs
(2002) concludes that “Germany has developed the most consultative approach among
the environmental community, scientists, businesses, and government in part because
of the presence of the Green Party in parliament” (p. 243). In the USA, the electoral
system has precluded green parties from becoming an established player in the
political system. Furthermore, strong anti-regulatory forces and a higher propensity to
rely on the courts lead to a much more confrontational relationship between the
environmental community, business and government in the USA than in Germany.
Whereas the German primacy of precaution gave rise to consensus about
comprehensive regulations, the US-American liberal market philosophy accepted
proactive action only when industry could find win-win solutions (Schreurs, 2002).
According to Campbell (2007), state regulations that evolve from consensus between
business, government and other stakeholders should encourage corporations to act in
an environmentally responsible manner. This contributed to Germany’s image as a
global environmental leader (Schreurs, 2002). In the “2012 Environmental Performance
Index” (http://epi.yale.edu/) Germany ranks 11 out of 132 nations; the USA performed
considerably lower at rank 49. This is backed by public opinion polls (Gallup, n.d.;
Umweltbundesamt, 2008) such that Germans show a higher ecological awareness than
US citizens.
It can, therefore, be assumed that German companies embedded in a highly
consensual surrounding and confronted with high expectations, emphasize
environmental issues more than US companies, which leads to the following hypothesis:
H3. CSR reports by German companies exhibit a greater focus on environmental
aspects than CSR reports by US companies.
CCIJ Economic dimension. Although not as extensive as in financial reporting, CSR reports
21,2 also cover a company’s economic responsibilities. In the logic of Hall and Soskice’s (2001)
VoC approach, the financial systems of liberal and coordinated economies should engender
different emphasis on economic aspects in CSR reports. In a liberal market economy like
the USA, the stock market is the most important source of capital. Therefore, companies
have to meet the high requirements by investors regarding transparency and
236 accountability. The emphasis of shareholder value compared to the value of other
stakeholders is consequently more pronounced. Companies belonging to coordinated
economies like Germany are embedded within a network of a few larger investors, with
banks playing an important role. Therefore, shareholders and other stakeholders are
claimed to be almost equally important (Hall and Soskice, 2001; Matten and Moon, 2008).
However, in the case of market-listed MNEs, which are the objects of our comparative
study, it is unlikely that the different financial systems exert a great influence. In fact, large
German companies increasingly use international stock markets as a source of capital what
encourages shareholder-oriented corporate governance (Matten and Moon, 2008). Given
this adjustment to shareholder orientation by German MNEs, we hypothesize:
H4. US and German companies focus equally on economic contents in their CSR reports.

Methodology
Sample
We focussed on CSR reports distributed by MNEs as print publications and/or
electronic documents. Because this type of publication provides information with
respect to a certain period of time it is well suited for comparative analysis.
We included the top 40 US and the top 40 German companies listed in The Forbes
Global 2000 of 2011 that published a CSR report (in English) for the year 2011 by
August 27, 2012. Altogether, 46 companies had published a complete CSR report
by that date (NUSA ¼ 26, NG ¼ 20). If there was no separate CSR report available, we
extracted the CSR section from the firm’s annual report if it comprised more than
six pages (NUSA ¼ 1, NG ¼ 4). Unless otherwise indicated, the analyses are based on the
46 complete reports plus the five extracts (Ntotal ¼ 51; NUSA ¼ 27, NG ¼ 24).
We checked each company to ascertain whether it was a member of the UNGC in 2011
(NUNGC-USA ¼ 7, NUNGC-G ¼ 19) and whether it claimed to adhere to the GRI G3 or G3.1
guidelines (NGRI-USA ¼ 18, NGRI-G ¼ 15). Company size, which was used as a control
variable, was measured as the natural logarithm of sales (see Fortanier et al., 2011).

Procedure
To ensure comparability between our empirical research and previous studies, we
analyzed similarities and differences in CSR reports on the three TBL dimensions (see
Fortanier et al., 2011; Sherman and DiGuilio, 2010), which we derived inductively from the
report content (see Chen and Bouvain, 2009). To do so we used the content analysis
software “Leximancer” (www.leximancer.com; Smith and Humphreys, 2006) to identify
the central concepts of which companies gave an account in their CSR reports. Leximancer
is particularly suitable for the analysis of texts as it performs conceptual analysis of text
data in a largely language independent manner and provides unsupervised and
supervised analysis using seeded concept classifiers. The program identifies core concepts
within textual data. Themes or concept groupings are identified in textual data that
represent the clustering of both keyword-like phrases and name-like concepts. Leximancer
analyses data through word co-coherence and can identify relationships between concepts CSR reporting
both within and between different data sources (Smith, 2003). of US and
The analysis revealed 15 major concepts that can be classified into the three TBL
dimensions as follows: the economic dimension includes the concepts business/
German
corporate, management and performance; the environmental dimension is represented companies
by the concepts environment, emissions, energy and use; and the concepts health/
safety, community, social, employees, work and people can be allocated to the social 237
dimension. Furthermore, the concepts products and customers emerged and were
analyzed separately as they cannot be allocated conclusively to any one of the three
dimensions. In the G3 guidelines product-related aspects are considered partly as
environmental and partly as social performance indicators. Similarly, certain customer
aspects fall under social and others under economic performance.
Leximancer determines the importance of the concepts within each text by calculating
the relative weight of each concept in relation to the one that occurs most frequently. The
result is the relative importance of each concept expressed in percent. These percentage
values were used to compare the importance attributed to the different concepts.

Results
Harmonization through reporting standards
To test H1a and H1b, we calculated the coefficient of variation (CoV) for each concept
in each group (see Fortanier et al., 2011). The CoV represents the ratio of the standard
deviation to the mean, and is helpful for comparing the degree of variation from one data
series to another, even if the means differ greatly from each other. Table I gives an overview
of the CoVs and their relation to each other. The CoV ratio expresses the difference in
variance between CSR reports by companies that are members of the UNGC or adhere
to GRI compared to those not complying with those standards. A CoV ratio of 1.52,
for example, comparing the concept business for companies adhering and not adhering
to GRI indicates that the variance in reports that are not in line with GRI is higher by 1.52
than that variance in the reports of companies adhering to GRI guidelines.
CoV ratios are greater than 1 for many concepts, thus indicating harmonization, as
illustrated in Table I. We can see that both standards seem to cause harmonization
tendencies for the “economic” dimension. The CoV ratio for GC is 1.22, for GRI it is 1.52,
and all partial values are greater than 1, except for the concept business for GC.
Regarding the environmental dimension, the results show a harmonization tendency
through global standards as well. However, results are less conclusive for the social
dimension. Here, adherence to GRI guidelines and GC membership seem to cause a
contrary effect. Only the CoV ratios for the concepts employees (GC and GRI) and work,
as well as health/safety (GRI), are above 1. However, the overall CoV ratio for the social
dimension concerning adherence to GRI guidelines indicates a slight harmonization
tendency. When looking across all concepts (values for total), we find that the
adherence to GRI guidelines in particular results in a greater harmonization of reports
(CoVGRI total ¼ 1.25), thereby confirming H1a. UNGC membership leads to
harmonization, at least for companies’ reporting on their economic and
environmental performance and on social aspects concerning employees; thus, H1b
is partially confirmed.

Country-specific differences
To test H2-H4, we used the ANCOVA procedure with company size as the covariate.
H2 states that CSR reports by US companies exhibit a greater focus on social aspects
CCIJ
UN Global Compact Global Reporting Initiative
21,2 (UNGC) (GRI)
Concept/Dimension No (n ¼ 25) Yes (n ¼ 26) CoV ratio No (n ¼ 18) Yes (n ¼ 33) CoV ratio

Business/corporate 0.36 0.37 0.97 0.47 0.31 1.52

Management 0.82 0.61 1.34 0.85 0.60 1.42
238 Performance 0.75 0.52 1.44 0.93 0.47 1.98
Economic 0.33 0.27 1.22 0.38 0.25 1.52
Environment 0.65 0.32 2.03 0.71 0.50 1.42
Use 0.66 0.46 1.43 0.74 0.47 1.57
Energy 0.81 0.63 1.29 0.87 0.59 1.47
Emissions 0.87 0.45 1.93 0.70 0.60 1.17
Environmental 0.60 0.28 2.14 0.58 0.38 1.53
Community 0.67 1.52 0.44 1.01 1.08 0.94
Employees 0.55 0.52 1.06 0.60 0.50 1.20
Social 0.73 0.83 0.88 0.80 0.85 0.94
Work 0.36 0.37 0.97 0.41 0.35 1.17
People 0.58 1.02 0.57 0.78 0.82 0.95
Health/safety 0.83 0.91 0.91 1.05 0.78 1.35
Social 0.24 0.35 0.69 0.33 0.30 1.10
Table I. Customers 1.12 0.82 1.37 1.03 0.97 1.06
Harmonization
Products 0.47 0.53 0.89 0.54 0.46 1.17
tendencies through
global reporting Total 0.64 0.60 1.07 0.71 0.57 1.25
standards; Notes: The CoV (coefficient of variation) represents the ratio of the standard deviation to the mean;
coefficients of a CoV ratio (CoVNon-GRI/UNGC/CoVGRI/UNGC) greater than 1 indicates harmonization through global
variation (CoV) standards (GC, GRI); a CoV ratio smaller than 1 indicates the contrary

than CSR reports by German companies. Indeed, the concept community was
significantly more emphasized in US reports: MUSA ¼ 36.48 vs MG ¼ 7.29,
F(1, 48) ¼ 28.489, p o 0.001. Although none of the other five concepts on the
social dimension differed significantly between the two countries, the additive
index of all six concepts taken together lends support to H2: MUSA ¼ 30.79
vs MG ¼ 26.11, F(1, 47) ¼ 2.922, p o 0.05. H3 predicted German companies would
report more about environmental aspects than US companies. We found the
expected difference for two concepts. German companies focus more on
emissions: MUSA ¼ 17.85, MG ¼ 24.63, F(1, 48) ¼ 7.938, p o 0.01. They also place
significantly more weight on the concept energy: MUSA ¼ 24.56, MG ¼ 35.50,
F(1, 48) ¼ 6.282, p o 0.01. The overall difference after merging all four environmental
concepts was also significant: MUSA ¼ 27.85, MG ¼ 33.01, F(1, 48) ¼ 4.811, p o 0.02.
According to H4, US and German companies focus equally on the economic content
in their CSR reports. However, we found that German companies put more weight
on the concept management than US companies: MUSA ¼ 18.74 vs MG ¼ 42.13,
F(1, 48) ¼ 15.708, p o 0.001. This difference remained significant after joining
the three concepts subsumed in the economic dimension. German companies report
significantly more about economic aspects in total than US companies:
MUSA ¼ 36.20, MG ¼ 43.35, F(1, 48) ¼ 4.444, p o 0.05. The results are summarized
in Table II.
 Germany (n ¼ 24) US (n ¼ 27)
CSR reporting
Concept/Dimension Mean SD Mean SD F p of US and
German
Business/corporate 73.46 28.81 75.19 25.81 0.000 0.992
Management 42.13 23.54 18.74 9.42 15.71 0.000 companies
Performance 14.46 10.34 14.67 8.59 0.065 0.800
Economic 43.35 9.92 36.20 12.34 4.44 0.040
239
Environment 37.00 20.94 33.70 20.48 0.589 0.224
Emissions 24.63 9.77 17.85 15.76 7.94 0.004
Energy 35.50 24.62 24.56 16.28 6.28 0.008
Use 34.92 15.71 35.30 22.80 0.378 0.271
Environmental 33.01 11.41 27.85 15.04 4.81 0.017
Health/safety 27.71 22.49 32.63 29.12 0.051 0.411
Community 7.29 15.24 36.48 22.12 28.49 0.000
Social 24.92 16.35 20.33 20.69 0.497 0.242
Employees 50.21 23.85 43.30 25.55 0.143 0.354
Work 30.83 10.99 33.92 12.88 0.020 0.444
People 15.71 16.79 21.74 13.12 1.64 0.103
Social 26.11 9.18 30.79 7.99 2.92 0.047
Table II.
Customers 19.63 18.23 23.59 24.37 0.058 0.810 Country-specific
Products 54.50 29.19 50.04 22.33 0.298 0.587 differences in CSR
Note: “Company size” was included as covariate in each model, but was never a significant predictor reporting (ANCOVA
of the dependent variable results)

Discussion and conclusion

With this research we extend the empirical evidence on harmonization as well as
differences in CSR reporting. By comparing CSR reports of US and German MNEs that
adhere to the standards by GRI and the UNGC with reports that do not, we add to the thin
evidence base that global standards foster harmonization (Fortanier et al., 2011).
At the same time we find evidence for country-of-origin effects that can be traced back to
differences in the institutional and cultural differences: While German MNEs put more
emphasis on their environmental performance[3] US MNE’s focussed more on the social
dimension, in particular the community. A finding that is not in line with our predictions
regards the stronger focus on economic performance aspects by German companies,
which is driven by more emphasis on the concept management. This may be an indication
that German MNEs are particularly eager to stress that CSR is a management task and
that it needs to be integrated into corporate strategy. However, MNEs headquartered in
the USA should be just as eager to show this, and we would have expected to find no
difference between the two countries. These country-of-origin effects reveal that MNEs,
although accountable to all stakeholders worldwide, are still impacted by their home-
country institutions and expectations. Research in corporate reputation shows a higher
visibility and stakeholder awareness of companies in their home countries (Fombrun and
van Riel, 2004), which enhances the pressure to respond to stakeholder demands at home,
and can serve as evidence for legitimacy theory. However, it impedes comparability.
According to our research, global standards help overcome this impediment to a
certain extent by harmonizing reporting practice. Especially the reporting framework
developed by the GRI, with its detailed list of performance indicators, proves to be a
driver for harmonization. CSR reports of companies adhering to the GRI guidelines
show less variance in their emphasis of social, environmental and economic aspects
CCIJ than reports not complying with this standard. Our results are in line with those
21,2 by Fortanier et al. (2011), but we find additional evidence for harmonization on the
economic dimension and the additional concepts customers and products. Membership
in the UNGC partially conditioned more similar reports on the economic and
environmental dimensions. Concerning social performance, harmonization could only
be found for the aspect employees. Except for our positive finding on economic aspects,
240 this is in line with the results reported by Chen and Bouvain (2009) who found effects of
UNGC membership concerning content on the environment and workers. The absent
harmonization tendency on the environment dimension reported in the Fortanier et al.
study may be due to their somewhat narrow focus on aspects concerning climate
change. Because Leximancer extracts the concepts from the text, this category
comprised a wider range of concepts in our own research and that by Chen and
Bouvain. This way, we were able to unveil harmonization tendencies due to UNGC
membership also concerning environmental aspects. In sum, GRI creates stronger
harmonization effects, which can be ascribed to their more detailed reporting
framework. In 2010 the two initiatives strengthened their alliance including the UNGC’s
statement of intent to recommend the use of GRI guidelines for companies’ COP
(UN Global Compact, 2010). This strengthens the role of GRI and will likely lead to
coalescent effects.
With respect to the call for more comparability, companies’ adherence to standards
like GRI and UNGC is desirable from a political and a managerial standpoint. It however
remains unanswered whether CSR reporting enhances transparency or whether
companies adhering to the standards merely engage in transparency signaling.
As Rawlins (2009) points out, “disclosure, alone, can defeat the purpose of transparency.
It can obfuscate, rather than enlighten” (p. 74). Others contemplate that the legitimacy
that companies gain by formally adopting the standards may shield them from closer
scrutiny, thus enabling rather than constraining the types of activities the standards
aimed to discourage (Behnam and MacLean, 2011). In their analysis of the impact of the
GRI on a firm’s CSR reporting and management practices, Vigneau et al. (2014) show that
GRI leads to an overemphasis of CSR representation over CSR performance; this, in turn,
is leading to unintended consequences on CSR management practices.

Limitations and future research

In our test for harmonization we compared companies that adhere to the standards
with those that do not. Although we find harmonization due to adherence, it does not
mean that the reports by companies that follow the guidelines are highly comparable.
Research has shown that even those reports that are externally approved to report at
the highest level differ with respect to the indicators covered (Knebel and Seele, 2015),
and that the second round of G3 reporting (G3.1) did not improve comparability
(Sherman and DiGuilio, 2010). Our findings have to be considered in combination with
these findings.
Our analyses using Leximancer software focussed on the relative emphasis given to
different concepts in a text. Content analyses with human coders will help to draw more
in depth conclusions concerning the content quality of CSR reports. Rating systems
for environmental disclosure by Clarkson et al. (2008) and for social disclosure by
Sutantoputra (2009) can serve as a guide for developing a suitable coding scheme.
Another limitation of our study is the restriction to market-listed MNEs and to
two countries. Previous studies found differences between MNEs and SMEs (for an
overview, see Fifka, 2013b). Furthermore, analyzing the reporting practices of
companies outside the Western world is highly relevant (e.g. Jamali and Neville, 2011; CSR reporting
Tang and Li, 2009). Testing the influence of communication culture on quality aspects of US and
of CSR reporting is a particularly prolific avenue for future research. As global
standards like GRI have originated in Western cultures and expect companies to
German
exhibit a low-context way of communication, which is direct and precise (Hall, 1976), companies
analyzing the application of such standards in high-context cultures (e.g. most Asian
countries) is relevant for research and practice alike. 241
To test effects over time and explore whether harmonization is a continuing trend or
not, future studies should ideally be designed longitudinally. In the G4 framework, GRI
(2013) strengthened its emphasis on materiality. This may in fact lead to a decrease in
harmonization because of companies’ stronger consideration of stakeholder
expectations in their home countries due to their higher visibility there (Fombrun
and van Riel, 2004). Because materiality varies between sectors, G4 guidelines may also
foster sector-specific differences, which have already been reported in a number of
studies (Clarke and Gibson-Sweet, 1999; Jose and Lee, 2007; Kolk, 2005; Lock and Seele,
2015; Sweeney and Coughlan, 2008). Longitudinal research is also required to test
whether country-or-origin effects continue to exist. Against the backdrop of a
proliferation of explicit CSR in Europe (Matten and Moon, 2008), we can expect country-
of-origin effects in CSR reporting to fade.

Notes
1. We use the term CSR reports to refer to reports that include information on the social and
environmental performance subsuming other terms like sustainability or responsibility
reports.
2. According to the GRI Sustainability Disclosure Database, 2,409 organizations (all sizes and
sectors) used the GRI reporting framework in 2011; in 2014 the number had risen to 3,227.
3. Since 2010 the “Mandatory Reporting of Greenhouse Gases Rule” obliges significant emitters
in the USA to report their yearly emissions to the US Environmental Protection Agency. This
will likely encourage US companies to include more environmental information in their CSR
reports mitigating the differences between German and US reporting practices.

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About the authors

Sabine Einwiller is a Professor of Public Relations Research at the University of Vienna, Austria.
Prior to this appointment she was a Professor at the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz,
Germany. Sabine Einwiller studied Psychology at the University of Mannheim, Germany and
received her PhD in Business Administration from the University of St Gallen, Switzerland. Her
main research areas comprise corporate reputation management, CSR communication, and the
effects of negative publicity and complaining.
Christopher Ruppel is a Research Scholar and Doctoral Candidate at the University of
Vienna’s Department of Communication. Prior to this appointment he worked as a Research
Scholar at the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Germany where he also finished his
master’s degree in communication with a minor in economics. His research interests comprise
corporate branding, consumer-company (dis)identification and CSR. Christopher Ruppel is the
corresponding author and can be contacted at: christopher.ruppel@univie.ac.at
Alexandra Schnauber works as a Trainee in the Communications Department of a
multinational pharmaceutical company. She finished her master’s degree in communication with
a minor in American Studies at the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Germany where she
also worked as a Research Assistant in the Department of Communication.

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