Thesis supervisor: Zsuzsanna Győri
Location of studies (in Hungarian): Budapest Business School Abbreviation of location of studies: BGE
Description of the research topic:
In the past few decades, increasing environmental and social challenges demand economic actors to fulfil more and more tasks. Stakeholders, including investors, employees and consumers, expect companies to take responsibility for the impact of their activities and, in addition, to be involved in solving these problems and achieving sustainability. It is not enough to create value in just one field, namely in the financial one, but they have to meet this obligation in several dimensions. The integrated reporting (IR) guidelines of the International Integrated Reporting Council interpret value creation in six dimensions, thus providing opportunities not only for reporting on past activities, but for complex rethinking and planning of the future value creation process as well. Possible research questions are as follows: 1. Which opportunities does IR offer for a deeper and more complex understanding of corporate value creation? 2. How is IR applied in corporate practice? 3. What is the role of economic participants in spreading the IR approach and practice?
Expected results of the research: We will get a state of the art report on the usage of sustainability reporting and IR in Hungary and in the EU as well. We will gather the advantages of multi-dimensional reporting both from an institutional and a sectoral/regional/national/global point of view. We will collect the potential pitfalls as well, for formalizing suggestions for spreading sustainability reporting and IR.
Expected new competences and knowledge: student will develop competences in research of CSR, IR and corporate reporting tendences, both form theoretical and practical sides.