What is Social Reporting

This study analyzes the evolution of social reporting. After reviewing the literature on this topic and the main initiatives, reports, and standards, three stages can be distinguished: early moments, middle course, and current situation. All these stages have a coinciding concern that is accountability, but a very different way of putting it into practice. As the main conclusion, accountability continues to be the main objective of social reporting because companies understand the need to attend to stakeholders' demands in line with the stakeholder theory. However, voluntariness seems to give way to a regulatory horizon that allows the information received by these groups to be more relevant and reliable according to Directive 2014/95/EU for Non-Financial Information as a benchmark example of the social case in an international sphere. This contribution can help accounting regulators to address the immediate future of social reporting because understanding the past is a key to approaching the future.