3. Framework of institutional factors and SEAR in Italy

In Italy, there are some important factors that sustain the need for social and environmental accounting and reporting to emancipate economic, social relationships and democracy.

Following Contrafatto and Rusconi's idea [20], social and environmental accounting (SEAR) theory in Italy had its origins in the 1970s [21], but until the 1990s, we did not find empirical social and environmental reporting excluding the Merloni-Battelle experience. The reasons of interest in this theory are due to the fact that financial accounting and reporting law was not so exhaustive so there was a wide-open space to cover with social and environmental accounting theory.

In the 1980s, there was a lot of publications concerning this subject [17, 22–25], but organisation culture was not yet ready to accept these issues, as we can read: "This was partly, at least, a result of mutual distrust between corporations, public authorities and trades unions" ([8], p. 4).

Despite difficulties, there are some important factors in favour of SEAR; among them firstly, there is a common platform of "Economia Aziendale" [20] where financial accountants and social and environmental accountant scholars can dialogue quite easily.

The concept of an organisation following institutional theory [9] opens a holistic view of it and involves social and environmental subjects too.

Secondly, involvement in the economic system of different organisations, such as the state with public organisations, for-profit organisations and private, not-forprofit ones, pushed transparency in order to face crisis and to go on globalisation challenges. So, this evolution made it more and more important to have one common platform of information for dialogue so all economic partners had been more oriented towards disclosing their behaviour as regards the stakeholder.

In the following years, SEAR developed into a theory [2, 19, 26–30], but above all in practice, due to a lot of European initiatives (Stakeholder forum and Green papers 2001 and subsequent).

We have to remember, among other things, two important projects regarding SEAR: the first one had its origins in 1988 and its name is SBG (social balance group) that stated and is stating some principles that form SEAR (http://www.gruppobila nciosociale.org/).

The second important initiative for Italy was CSR-SC, 2003, which saw the progressive spreading of the debate on corporate social responsibility, both because the Italian government placed it among the five priorities of its European semester and because the European Campaign promoted by the European Commission, the CSR-Europe and the Copenhagen Centre realised events and actions.

CSR Training and Financial Statement "Disclosure": The Case of Italy DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.86688

The EU Commission identifies some guiding trains of thought regarding socially responsible conduct like the codes of conduct, managerial rules and regulations, accounting, auditing and the drawing up of reports, labels, and socially responsible investments.

From the point of view of provisions and policies issued by the Government, the partial Italian response is also substantiated in the CSR (corporate social responsibility)—SC (social commitment) project promoted by the Italian Ministry for Labour and Social Policy (http://www.camcom.gov.it/cdc/).

Until 2006, SEAR implementation in Italy was voluntary, from this date on, there has been the Italian law of 24th March 2006, No. 155: "The discipline of social enterprise", which at article 10 requires the compulsory drawing up of a social report. It is the first time that the Italian Parliament deliberated on a compulsory rule concerning SEAR.

The legislative decree of 30th December 2016, No. 254 was issued following implementation of directive 2014/95/EU of the European Parliament and of the European Council of 22nd October 2014, which modified directive 2013/34/EU as far as the communication of non-financial information and information on diversity by certain companies and certain large-scale groups are concerned. The decree came into effect on 25th January 2017 and the measures therein contained apply to financial years starting from 1st January 2017. This decree represents an important novelty since, for the first time in Italian for-profit businesses, the need for nonfinancial accounting is ratified.
