Italian Sport Federations. Communicating CSR through the Social Report

The aim of this chapter is to highlight recent trends in the field of social accounting and reporting involving Italian sport federations. The social report can be considered as an important tool of corporate communication. This chapter considers the factors that affect the adoption of social reporting, and the effects that this has on Italian sports federations. It is based on a research project initiated in 2004 with the aim of outlining specific guidelines for the compilation of the social report in Italian sports federations (Buscarini, 2006). The chapter shows how Italian sports federations use the social report to confirm the social utility of their activities with specific reference to the development of sports, educational and social welfare. In particular, social reporting activates a ‘virtuous circle’ of planning-management-accounting-control, which can increase accountability throughout the organization in order to achieve social and institutional goals and to enable external stakeholders to assess the federation’s performance.