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lost its prevalence and moved to the background. By the end of 1980s the topic of social reporting made its comeback, this time with a particular focus on environmental issues (Kolk, 2005).

Since then, social and environmental reporting (later known as sustainability reporting or corporate responsibility reporting) has grown substantially: from 13% in 1993 to nearly 80% across the largest 250 companies worldwide (G250) in 2008 (KPMG, 2008, p. 13). The survey of KPMG on the state of corporate responsibility reporting shows that the rate of reporting amongst the largest 100 companies in 22 countries is 45% on average. Japan leads with 88%, followed by the UK (84%). The Netherlands share fourth place with Canada (both 60%).

An increasing number of companies prefer to issue separate reports, instead of including information on corporate responsibility in their annual financial reports: from 52% in 2005 to 79% in 2008 (KPMG, 2008, p. 14). Almost 70% of the companies surveyed by KPMG applied the Global Reporting Initiative's (GRI) Guidelines as the basis for their reporting (KPMG, 2008, p.21). GRI's Guidelines assist companies in measuring and reporting their economic, environmental and social performance. Currently, G3 Guidelines (2006) is the latest version available and replaces former issues: G1 (2000) and G2 (2002). [5] 

We would like to conclude this chapter by mentioning the development in assurance of corporate responsibility reports. The number of G250 companies that make use of formal assurance in their reports increased to 40% in 2008, opposed to 30% in 2002 and 2005 (KPMG, 2008, p.56).

A recent call by a wide range of stakeholders (e.g. customers, employees, governments) has encouraged many companies to undertake additional investments in corporate social responsibility (CSR). However, not every company has responded positively to an allocation of their resources towards CSR. Some firms argued that increased investments in CSR prevent them from maximizing their profits. The wide-spread concerns regarding a trade-off between CSR investment and profitability, motivated numerous researchers to explore the relationship between CSR and financial performance (McWilliams and Siegel, 2000, p. 603). Since the beginning of the debate in the 1970s, many studies have been published on this topic. Yet, there is no consensus in the literature on whether CSR leads to superior financial performance.

Griffin and Mahon (1997) have provided us with an overview for the period 1972 until 1997. They reviewed 51 studies that examined the relationship between corporate social and financial performance, and were published during a time span of 25 years (1972-1997). Each of these studies has been reviewed for: population tested, methodologies employed, data sources, corporate financial performance measures, corporate social performance measures, control variables, results and significance level and reliability/validity testing. The authors divided the 62 obtained research results into three categories: results that show a positive correlation; results that show a negative correlation and results that show no effect or are inconclusive. Analysis of these results provided the following overview: 33 research results found a positive relationship, 20 research results found a negative relationship and 9 research results found no relationship or were inconclusive (Griffin and M本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。