Exploring social reporting practices in Italian local governments: Emerging trends and insight for improvement

Social accountability in public organizations has significantly evolved in the last 20 years. In Italy, the Government and institutional bodies fostered this process by publishing social accountability standards and guidelines for local governments. However, further research is still needed to understand if and how these administrations are using such tools to disseminate their social performances’ results. Are social reports actually used by Italian public authorities as means to deliver social accountability? This paper is aimed at highlighting the evolution and current social reporting practices within the Italian public sector. The analysis focuses on a sample of 51 Italian local governments over a 15-year time span. The sample includes municipalities with more than 100 thousand inhabitants and regional capital cities.The empirical analysis reveals that social reporting practices differ significantly in terms of formal structure, content and communication strength. Also, it seems that many local governments are unaware of the importance of social reporting, which is performed only on an occasional basis and differs from criteria set for public accountability.