Converging Trends in Social reporting Regulation: the Case of Italian Public and Non-profit Sectors

Social accounting and reporting have been widely adopted all over the world by various kinds of organisations. While most of the literature focuses on private corporations, in recent years several scholars have been calling for more attention to the reporting practices of the public and non-profit sectors. This article offers an overview of the main peculiarities of social reporting in Italy; in particular, moving from the assumption that reporting practices are influenced by the role of organisations within their operative context, it will reveal converging trends in both public sector and non-profit organisations towards a partially-regulated framework in which they can choose whether or not to use social reports but they also receive specific guidance from governmental bodies should they voluntarily decide to report. This article discusses such trends by considering the effects of public sector reforms on the role of both local governments and non-profit organisations in the delivery of local public service.