Mandatory CSR reporting—literature review and future developments in Germany

The last years have seen an upsurge in corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting regulation around the world. Based on a summary of the literature, this paper provides an overview over possible consequences of CSR reporting regulation and derives potential future developments brought by the introduction of the European CSR Directive in Germany. The results suggest that mandatory CSR reporting leads to a shift in companies’ reporting behaviour. In particular, more companies report on CSR issues and overall quantity of reporting is increased. However, this does not go along with an increase in reporting quality. Moreover, results indicate that consequences of companies’ changed reporting behaviour (i. e., second-order consequences) are under-researched. Lastly, this paper suggests that German companies will, subsequent to the CSR Directive, increase the number of topics covered in their CSR reports, possibly at the expense of overall reporting quality. It remains an interesting question for future researchers to examine the extent to which mandatory CSR reporting may bring about other consequences, on a company-, investor- or society-level.