Sustainability and Stakeholder
Management: the Need for New
Corporate Performance Evaluation and
Reporting Systems
Francesco Perrini1
and Antonio Tencati2
*
1
‘G. Pivato’ Management Department (IEGI), Bocconi University, and
Corporate Finance and Real Estate Department, SDA Bocconi School of Management,
Bocconi University, Milan, Italy
2
SPACE – European Research Centre on Risk, Security, Occupational Health and Safety,
Environment and Crisis Management, ‘G. Pivato’ Management Department (IEGI),
Bocconi University, Milan, Italy
ABSTRACT
Corporate sustainability, that is the capacity of a ﬁrm to continue operating over a
long period of time, depends on the sustainability of its stakeholder relationships.
This new stakeholder view of the ﬁrm goes beyond previous work on the triple bottom
line and balanced scorecard. Companies need appropriate systems to measure and
control their own behaviour in order to assess whether they are responding to stakeholder
concerns in an effective way and to communicate the results achieved. These
sustainability accounting systems should have the purpose of broadening and integrating
the traditional ﬁnancial approaches to corporate performance measurement,
taking stakeholder needs into due account. This article presents the sustainability evaluation
and reporting system (SERS), an integrated methodology aimed at monitoring
and tracking from a qualitative and quantitative viewpoint the overall corporate performance
according to a stakeholder framework, in line with small and medium-sized
enterprises’ managerial requirements. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and
ERP Environment.
Received 16 September 2005; revised 21 January 2006; accepted 6 February 2006
Keywords: corporate sustainability; stakeholder view; sustainability accounting systems; corporate performance; evaluation
and reporting
Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment
Business Strategy and the Environment
Bus. Strat. Env. 15, 296–308 (2006)
Published online in Wiley InterScience
(www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI: 10.1002/bse.538
* Correspondence to: Antonio Tencati, Assistant Professor of Business Management, SPACE – European Research Centre on Risk, Security, Occupational
Health and Safety, Environment and Crisis Management, ‘G. Pivato’ Management Department (IEGI), Bocconi University, Viale Filippetti,
9, 20122 Milan, Italy. E-mail: antonio.tencati@unibocconi.it
Sustainability and Stakeholder Management 297
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DOI: 10.1002/bse
Introduction
V
ALUE CREATION IS THE FINAL OBJECTIVE OF A COMPANY (RAPPAPORT, 1986; MILLS AND
Weinstein, 2000; Jensen, 2001; Grant, 2002): in order to achieve this purpose, the ﬁrm
cannot ignore the context in which it operates. In fact, a network of relationships connects
the company to a great number of interrelated individuals and constituencies, called stakeholders
(Freeman, 1984; Donaldson and Preston, 1995; Post et al., 2002). These relationships inﬂuence
the way a company is governed and, in turn, are inﬂuenced by the company’s behaviour. In more
depth, Post et al. (2002, pp. 9, 8) emphasize that ‘the capacity of a ﬁrm to generate sustainable wealth
over time, and hence its long-term value, is determined by its relationships with critical stakeholders’
and ‘any stakeholder relationship may be the most critical one at a particular time or on a particular
issue’.
With regard to this point, convincing examples are provided by the protesting and boycotting campaigns
carried out by NGOs against various companies operating in different industries and countries
(Klein, 2000; Hertz, 2001; Bandura et al., 2002; Bakan, 2004). Managers of these ﬁrms changed their
strategic choices under the pressure of some speciﬁc stakeholder groups and the lack of an early recognition
of their requirements brought in some cases harmful consequences for the company reputation
and the business development.
If the entire set of stakeholder relationships becomes strategic for the long-term success and survival
of a company, the measurement of corporate success cannot be limited to the creation of value for only
one stakeholder group, i.e. the shareholders (Clarkson, 1995, p. 112). During the last 15 years many proposals
were advanced to integrate and overcome the traditional methodologies, focusing on the ﬁnancial
dimension of corporate performance. Tools such as the balanced scorecard (Kaplan and Norton, 1992,
2004), the environmental and social reports (Bennett and James, 1999), the sustainability reports
deﬁned according to the triple bottom line (TBL) agenda (Elkington, 1994, 1997) and international standards
such as the Sustainability Reporting Guidelines fostered by the Global Reporting Initiative and
based on the TBL approach (GRI, 2002, 2006) are attempts to face the challenge represented by new
information requirements for decision-making processes and communication policies (Wagner and
Schaltegger, 2003; Schaltegger and Wagner, 2006).
However, at this time, how many companies have really changed their perspectives? How many companies
measure and assess their own performance considering the impact of their own activities, for
example, on human, social and natural capitals? Even if we consider only the listed companies worldwide,
how many of these ﬁrms have really left the shareholder approach to adopt a more comprehensive
stakeholder one? And if the largest companies are not so engaged, what about the small and
medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which are the majority of ﬁrms in the economic systems of every
nation?
The purpose of this paper is exactly to address this need for change by presenting a relational
view of the ﬁrm, based on the strategic value of the linkages with stakeholders, and its implication
in terms of corporate performance evaluation and reporting systems. Therefore the focus of the
paper is put on a new proposal in the ﬁeld of sustainability accounting, deﬁned according to this
stakeholder framework in order to support companies and especially SMEs in their strategic and
managerial efforts.
In more detail, the following section of the article starts from considering the ultimate goals of a
company and proposes sustainability as a paradigm capable of ensuring the durable survival of ﬁrms.
This model, which combines economic prosperity, social cohesion and environmental protection, is
functional to and in keeping with the corporate objective of long-term value creation. A sustainability-
298 F. Perrini and A. Tencati
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DOI: 10.1002/bse
oriented company is fully aware of its responsibilities towards the different stakeholders and adopts
methods and tools that allow it to improve its social and ecological performance. Thus, new sustainability
accounting systems are needed.
With regard to this point, in the next section we advance our proposal, derived from theoretical analyses
and empirical experiences and called SERS (sustainability evaluation and reporting system). This
framework is coherent with the stakeholder view and can support all kinds of company to manage in
an integrated way the relationships that are crucial for their long-term success.
The last section contains a discussion about the features of this approach and the further steps needed
to improve the measurement of business success and go beyond the traditional ﬁnancial and management
accounting.
Stakeholder View, Corporate Sustainability and Performance Management
According to the stakeholder view of the ﬁrm (Donaldson and Preston, 1995; Clarkson, 1995; Post et al.,
2002), a company can last over time if it is able to build and maintain sustainable and durable relationships
with all members of its stakeholder network. ‘These relationships are the essential assets that
managers must manage, and they are the ultimate sources of organizational wealth’ (Post et al., 2002,
p. 8).
From this point of view, a company creates value when it adopts a managerial approach, which is sustainability
oriented. In general, corporate sustainability can be considered as ‘a broad approach that
includes various characteristics, in particular relating to the contextual integration of economic, environmental
and social aspects’ (Schaltegger and Burritt, 2005, p. 189). In more detail, according to the
deﬁnition given by AccountAbility (1999, p. 94), ‘sustainability is the capability of an organization to
continue its activities indeﬁnitely, having taken due account of their impact on natural, social and human
capitals’. A sustainability-oriented company is one that develops over time by taking into consideration the
economic, social and environmental dimensions of its processes and performance. Therefore, ﬁnancial
and competitive success, social legitimacy and efﬁcient use of natural resources are intertwined according
to a synergetic and circular view of the company’s aims. In this perspective, value creation processes
are broad and shared and meet, in different ways, the stakeholder expectations. For this reason it is possible
to make a shift in the generally adopted notion of value and introduce the concept of stakeholder
value (Figge and Schaltegger, 2000).
Thus, the sustainability of a ﬁrm depends on the sustainability of its stakeholder relationships: a
company must consider and engage not only shareholders, employees and clients, but also suppliers,
public authorities, local (or national, according to a ﬁrm’s size) community and civil society in general,
ﬁnancial partners etc. Nowadays and more and more in the future, the quality, that is the sustainability,
of stakeholder relationships must be the guiding principle for the managerial decision-making
process and the pillar of a more comprehensive corporate strategy.
Adopting this stakeholder view means rethinking nature and purposes of ﬁrms and the managerial
tools adopted by companies themselves. In this relational view of the ﬁrm, the success of managerial
efforts cannot be measured according to a shareholder perspective, but only by adopting a more holistic
and comprehensive stakeholder framework. Companies need appropriate systems to measure and
control their own behaviour in order to assess whether they are responding to stakeholder concerns in
an effective way and in order to communicate and demonstrate the results achieved. These new evaluation
and reporting systems should have the purpose of broadening, integrating and improving the
Sustainability and Stakeholder Management 299
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DOI: 10.1002/bse
traditional ﬁnancial/economic approaches to the corporate performance measurement, taking stakeholder
needs and requirements into due account.
In over 15 years, more than a hundred standards and management solutions were developed to evaluate
and report the economic, social, environmental and sustainability performance of companies (ISO
Advisory Group on Corporate Social Responsibility, 2003). These tools provide information of a qualitative,
quantitative and economic nature and inﬂuence the interactions between a ﬁrm and its stakeholders.
Nevertheless, this multiplicity, complexity and the absence of a clear reference framework
generate undesired effects among companies and their own stakeholders.
• Confusion for companies and lack of management and organizational innovation. The existence of
several standards and acronyms, the development of different and at the same time similar proposals
especially focused on big ﬁrms’ expectations can complicate companies’ attitude towards sustainability
and CSR. This can bring a slowing down of the adoption and implementation of more advanced
managerial models, especially in small and medium-sized enterprises, rather than supporting and promoting
them.
• Confusion and lack of clarity for the companies’ stakeholders. If ﬁrms do not use an effective and
clear approach in order to manage, assess and report their own performance, the different stakeholder
groups have difﬁculties in analyzing and appreciating the sustainability efforts of enterprises.
Furthermore, this absence of shared, sound and recognized processes and methods might reward free
riders that adopt fraudulent behaviour and communicate unfair and untrue results.
Moreover, even if we consider the most advanced methodologies in the sustainability ﬁeld (Figge et
al., 2002), they are not designed to take into account in an explicit, clear and complete way the different
relationships that companies develop with their stakeholders. The concept of extended enterprise,
based on a relational view of the ﬁrm focused on stakeholder linkages (Post et al., 2002, p. 25), goes
beyond ‘previous work on the “triple bottom line” and “balanced scorecard”’: ‘The key to solving the
core strategic problem is to understand the ﬁrm’s entire set of stakeholder relationships’ (Post et al.,
2002, p. 8).
Furthermore, the traditional environmental, social and sustainability reports are deﬁned more as
public relations products than as effective methodologies to control and manage the corporate performance
(Cerin, 2002a, 2002b).
Finally, the balanced scorecard, the GRI Sustainability Reporting Guidelines and the Sustainability
Integrated Guidelines for Management (SIGMA Project, 2003) are instruments not suitable for SMEs
because of their complexity, the limited ﬂexibility and the need for formal procedures. Until now, for
example, only some hundred companies all over the world have adopted the Sustainability Reporting
Guidelines, but this result is very far from a broad ﬁrms’ involvement. During the last years approaches
and guidelines have been developed in order to support SMEs in their managerial efforts (e.g. Rayner
and Raven, 2002; CSR Europe, 2002; United Nations Industrial Development Organization, 2002;
Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Emerging Markets, 2004; GRI, 2004). They can be considered as important
steps towards a greater engagement of small and medium companies, but they did not provide solutions
that have become reference points in the management of sustainability.
In conclusion, in order to face the strategic challenge related to the management of stakeholder relationships
and meet the managerial needs especially coming from SMEs, we believe that there is a strong
need for a clear and modular methodology for a sustainability accounting system. In the following
section, we present and describe our framework, deﬁned to monitor and track from a qualitative and
quantitative viewpoint the overall corporate performance according to a stakeholder view and based on
a ﬂexible structure that makes it suitable for companies of different industries, sizes and countries.
300 F. Perrini and A. Tencati
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DOI: 10.1002/bse
Describing the Framework: Sustainability Evaluation and Reporting System (SERS)
The proposal – developed by SPACE (the Research Centre of Bocconi University on Risk, Security, Occupational
Health and Safety, Environment and Crisis Management) and called the sustainability evaluation
and reporting system (SERS) – aims to aggregate different management tools (e.g. social reporting,
environmental reporting and key performance indicators) into a comprehensive model. This integrated
approach derives from theoretical analyses and empirical experiences carried on in almost 15 years of
research activities in the ﬁelds of management of sustainability and social, environmental and sustainability
performance evaluation and reporting and thanks to the collaboration with companies and institutions
(SPACE, 1993; Pogutz and Tencati, 1997; De Silvio and Tencati, 2002; Tencati, 2002; Perrini
and Tencati, 2003). The goal is to build an efﬁcient and effective methodology for an overall assessment
of the corporate sustainability in order to foster and support new accounting and reporting efforts in
companies (with a particular focus on SMEs), contribute to the integration between ﬁnancial and nonﬁnancial
performance measures, improve the quality of decision-making processes and of the overall
business management and strengthen the corporate accountability and responsiveness towards the different
stakeholder groups.
SERS is composed of three modules (see Figure 1):
• the overall reporting system (or the sustainability reporting system), which comprises
– the annual report;
– the social report;
– the environmental report;
– a set of integrated performance indicators;
• the integrated information system;
• the key performance indicators for corporate sustainability.
Overall Reporting
System
Integrated
Information System
Stakeholder view of the firm
Key Performance
Indicators for
Corporate
Sustainability
Figure 1. The sustainability evaluation and reporting system (SERS)
Sustainability and Stakeholder Management 301
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DOI: 10.1002/bse
The Overall Reporting System
The Annual Report
The annual report includes the proﬁt and loss account, the balance sheet and the statement of cash ﬂows.
Ratios and indicators should be included in order to check the corporate competitiveness in the ﬁnance,
marketing, operations, technology and quality ﬁelds. Furthermore, signiﬁcant information from a social
and environmental point of view is already presented in annual reports with regard to issues related to
risk management, potential liabilities, research and development policies and so on. In any case, every
country has a speciﬁc regulation on this topic. The last ﬁnancial downfalls brought policy-makers to
strengthen the rules regarding the ﬁnancial accounting in order to ensure higher levels of transparency
and fairness in ﬁnancial accounting and reporting activities. However, if we adopt a stakeholder view of
the ﬁrm, this tool is not sufﬁcient to cover all aspects of corporate performance, including social and
environmental ones.
The Social Report
The social report measures the impact of the company and its activities on the different stakeholder
groups. Therefore, it is a methodology capable of supporting the management decision-making process
and the corporate communication/engagement policies. According to the SERS approach, it is composed
of the ethical policy, the value-added statement and the analysis of stakeholder relationships (see
Table 1).
The ethical policy contains speciﬁc corporate commitments toward the stakeholder groups in line with
the relational view of the ﬁrm. On the basis of these commitments the corporate social performance is
assessed through the other two elements.
The value-added statement is a traditional tool in social reporting: for example, it was adopted in the
1970s by the group of German companies called Sozialbilanz-Praxis (Rusconi, 1988, pp. 84–88), and it
is the link between the traditional ﬁnancial accounting and the social reporting. It measures the
(ﬁnancial) value added generated and distributed by the company to the different stakeholder groups
(employees, ﬁnancial partners, state and local authorities, community, shareholders) or invested into
1. Corporate identity
– Brief description of the company
– Ethical policy
➔ Charter of values and principles (ethical code)
➔ Mission
➔ Charter of commitments towards stakeholders
➢ Employees
➢ Members/shareholders, ﬁnancial community
➢ Clients/customers
➢ Suppliers
➢ Financial partners (banks, insurance companies and ﬁnancial services)
➢ State, local authorities and public administration
➢ Community
2. Economic wealth created and distributed by the company:
The value added
3. Relationships with stakeholders
Table 1. The social report according to the SERS scheme
302 F. Perrini and A. Tencati
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DOI: 10.1002/bse
the ﬁrm. It is a ﬁrst picture of the (stakeholder) value created and distributed (Figge and Schaltegger,
2000).
The analysis of stakeholder relationships aims to assess the sustainability of the interactions between
a company and its stakeholders through qualitative and quantitative information. This analysis also comprises
forms of social accounting in order to understand the economic costs and beneﬁts related to social
activities and policies (e.g. internal costs and beneﬁts related to the occupational health and safety
management).
The Environmental Report
In general, the corporate environmental report is a tool a company uses to manage and control corporate
activities and support communication with stakeholders, especially those interested in environmental
issues (Azzone et al., 1997). Although a single, deﬁnitive model of environmental report does not yet
exist because of the special features of the tool (still prevailing voluntary approach, focus on the national,
industrial, corporate speciﬁcities etc.), we can attempt to deﬁne the boundaries that should characterize
a comprehensive environmental information system. According to the nature of the environmental
information (physical data or ﬁnancial items) and the object that these measurements refer to (processes
or products), it is possible to classify the principal methodologies developed up to now to monitor the
relationships between corporate activities and natural capital as follows (see Table 2).
The environmental reporting framework within SERS aims to include all the methodologies identiﬁed
and combine an accounting system collecting physical data with the measurement of (internal) costs
and beneﬁts related to the environmental management choices made as regards processes and products
(Burritt et al., 2002). According to this approach, the environmental report comprises input–output
analysis, LCA and cost–beneﬁt account related to environmental management of products/processes.
Therefore, two important kinds of information ﬂow are the object of the environmental reporting system:
ﬂows related to physical data – energy and materials accounting; ﬂows related to ﬁnancial items – monetary
environmental accounting (see Figure 2).
Energy and materials accounting (Hallay, 1990; Beck, 1993) collects information regarding the environmental
impact of company activities. Input–output analyses gather and organize the information on
energy and material consumptions and the related emissions caused by the operations. Ecobalances
(LCA) measure the environmental impact of the main products of the ﬁrm in terms of resources consumption
and pollution along their entire life cycle (from-cradle-to-cradle approach).
Monetary environmental accounting (Bundesumweltministerium and Umweltbundesamt, 1995; US
EPA, 1995) is a method designed to determine the ﬁnancial costs/beneﬁts borne by the company and
associated with the environmental management activities carried out by the ﬁrm itself and represents
the second important dimension in developing a corporate environmental report. It is a matter of buildTypes
of environmental information Energy and material ﬂows Financial items
Object of analysis
Processes Ecobalance or input–output Cost–beneﬁt accounting related to environmental
analysis management of processes
Products Product ecobalance or life-cycle Cost–beneﬁt accounting related to environmental
assessment (LCA) management of products
Table 2. Environmental accounting: main methodologies
Sustainability and Stakeholder Management 303
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DOI: 10.1002/bse
ing a tool to measure the economic quantities related to environmental management to improve decision-making.
This monetary environmental accounting has to be well integrated with the existing
ﬁnancial and management accounting systems (Burritt, 1997). Therefore, deﬁning this kind of environmental
accounting is very complex and few companies in the world have introduced an advanced
system of measuring environmental costs and beneﬁts.
A Set of Integrated Performance Indicators
The Sustainability Reporting System allows a company to check and report the annual overall corporate
performance. Its goal is to build a true and fair view of the business situation in order to strengthen,
improve and manage in a sustainable way the stakeholder relationships. It is a fundamental tool in
meeting the information needs coming from different stakeholder groups and affecting the concept of
corporate accountability. Thus, in order to achieve a more complete view of the business behaviour, a
company should also deﬁne and present a set of integrated performance indicators, i.e. cross-cutting indicators
(GRI, 2002, pp. 45, 82–84). In general, cross-cutting indicators relate physical and technical quantities
to ﬁnancial ones (e.g. an indicator could relate the total amount of waste generated during the year
to the value added). In this way, a ﬁrm goes beyond a triple bottom line approach in order to adopt a
more comprehensive and integrated perspective, capable of deﬁning a more reliable and material picture
of the corporate activities and related implications.
The Integrated Information System
This is the core of performance evaluation and reporting processes. Based on the new ICT – information
and communication technologies – solutions such as the enterprise resource planning (ERP)
systems, this element enables an organization to collect, process and share physical/technical and
ﬁnancial data. Programmes to introduce environmental and social accounting systems for the purpose
of integrating and improving the existing ﬁnancial and cost accounting methodologies have to start from
this level.
Input–
output
analysis
Corporate
environmental report
Energy and
materials
accounting
Product
ecobalances
(LCA)
Financial
accounting
Management
accounting
Monetary
environmental
accounting
Figure 2. The environmental report: the SERS model
304 F. Perrini and A. Tencati
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The goal is to build a satellite accounting system (United Nations, 1993; United Nations et al., 2003)
focused on social and environmental performance, capable of collecting and organizing all the relevant
data (including ﬁnancial ones) and connected with the other speciﬁc accounting/information systems.
Through the integration of the different databases it is possible to extract and provide to operators and
decision-makers the necessary information to assess the overall performance of the company and its
sustainability.
The Key Performance Indicators for Corporate Sustainability
They are speciﬁc indicators developed in relationship with the corporate information requirements. The
aim is to provide a tool to continually monitor an organization’s performance trends. Number and types
of measures should be deﬁned on the basis of real corporate needs. In this way the key performance
indicators (KPIs) represent a dashboard of sustainability (International Institute for Sustainable
Development, 2001) supporting management decision-making processes. Sets of indicators proposed
by many organizations, such as GRI (2002, 2006), the World Business Council for Sustainable Development
(WBCSD, 2000, 2003), Eurostat (2005) and the European Environment Agency (EEA, 2002,
2003), can be used in drawing up an organization’s speciﬁc measurements, but they cannot limit the
corporate choice. Indicators can focus on the ﬁnancial, operating, marketing, environmental, social,
cross-cutting (e.g. with regard to the eco-efﬁciency and the socio-efﬁciency of the organization:
Schaltegger et al., 2002, p. 9; Schaltegger and Burritt, 2005, pp. 188–192) aspects of business management.
KPIs are also used in the overall reporting system and in order to deﬁne them the company should
carry on stakeholder engagement activities (Stakeholder Research Associates Canada et al., 2005;
AccountAbility, 2005).
KPIs are the crucial element of the SERS methodology. A small or medium company could not have
sufﬁcient time and resources to deﬁne a long and complicated sustainability reporting system, but this
kind of ﬁrm certainly needs a map for an ongoing assessment of its performance and of the related
quality (i.e. degree of sustainability) of the relationships with its stakeholders. This map is really provided
by a set of KPIs, and this consistent and clear dashboard of sustainability could also be used as a
fundamental tool to communicate the information required by the different stakeholder groups. Therefore,
in line with the adopted stakeholder view of the ﬁrm and the sustainability concept, KPIs should
be organized according to a framework based on stakeholder categories.
For example, the indicators could be organized according to a three-level framework (WBCSD, 2000,
p. 8; GRI, 2002, pp. 36–37):
• categories, stakeholder groups that are speciﬁcally affected by clusters of indicators;
• aspects, thematic areas monitored by groups of performance indicators related to a given category of
stakeholders;
• indicators, measurements that supply information related to a given aspect. They can be used to check
and demonstrate organizational performance. The information can be qualitative, quantitative
(physical and technical) or economic–monetary.
The stakeholder categories adopted could be as follows (Tencati et al., 2004):
(1) employees;
(2) members/shareholders, ﬁnancial community;
(3) clients/customers;
(4) suppliers;
(5) ﬁnancial partners;
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(6) state, local authorities and public administration;
(7) community;
(8) environment.
In particular, the small and medium-sized enterprises could use this proposal as a starting point to build
their own shared map, through a speciﬁc stakeholder engagement process, in order to assess and communicate
the corporate performance.
Conclusions
One of the keys for a successful strategic management is the availability of sustainability accounting
tools capable of monitoring and tracking from a qualitative and quantitative viewpoint the overall corporate
performance and, in particular, the state, i.e. the sustainability, of the different stakeholder relationships.
Thus, there is an urgent call for new systems of measuring the corporate outcomes according
to a stakeholder framework in line with a more suitable and correct strategic approach.
In this article we have presented SERS, a sustainability evaluation and reporting system, based on a
stakeholder view of the ﬁrm and therefore really aimed at balancing and integrating ﬁnancial and nonﬁnancial
performance indicators, supporting planning, implementation and control activities of a
sustainability-oriented and responsive organization.
Our proposal provides a reliable tool in order to help companies to understand stakeholder requirements
and assess their own performance. This framework, through an integrated perspective, aims:
(1) to aggregate different management tools (e.g. social reporting, environmental reporting and KPIs)
into a comprehensive model – methodological integration;
(2) to map and monitor the entire set of a company’s stakeholder relationships – integration of different
perspectives into the sustainability accounting system towards a multiple bottom line approach –
and
(3) to supply information, which can be qualitative, quantitative (physical and technical) and economic–monetary,
through the performance measurements – integration of data/information. These
indicators build a sort of dashboard of sustainability, that is an effective Tableau de Bord, which goes
beyond the traditional ﬁnancial data. Moreover, the availability of this broad range of measures allows
a company to build integrated performance indicators by relating physical and technical quantities
to ﬁnancial ones. The environmental intensity ratio presented in the previous section is only an
example of a methodology which can be applied by every ﬁrm. Companies could develop many other
measures according to their speciﬁc information needs: e.g., in the occupational health and safety
management ﬁeld, an indicator could relate the trend of the injury rate during the last three years
to the costs connected with the projects implemented to improve the work conditions; with regard
to R&D policies, another indicator could relate the achieved results in terms of new patents, launch
of new products, introduction of new labelling schemes etc. to the investments in this area borne
during a speciﬁc period of time identiﬁed on the basis of the industry competitive dynamics. These
comparisons help management to assess the effectiveness of their choices and to review their strategies
and deﬁne next steps by using a suitable informational support.
In this way, according to a relational view of the ﬁrm, the SERS methodology enables a company and
its management to manage the stakeholder relationships and address the information needs and the
economic, social and environmental concerns of various stakeholder groups. This point is crucial for
every kind of ﬁrm and especially for SMEs, whose success is deeply rooted in stakeholder networks
(Lipparini, 2002).
306 F. Perrini and A. Tencati
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DOI: 10.1002/bse
Moreover, the SERS structure, composed of different modules (the overall reporting system, the integrated
information system and the key performance indicators) is ﬂexible enough to be used by businesses
of different sizes operating in different sectors and countries.
However, further steps in the ﬁeld of sustainability accounting are expected: if stakeholder relationships
are the essential assets to create sustainable wealth, not only the company-centred, but also the
stakeholder-centred performance should be measured. This means that, for example, the degree of stakeholder
trust and the stakeholder satisfaction generated by the corporate strategy and behaviour should
be carefully evaluated (Ghoshal and Bartlett, 1999; Lev, 2001; Castaldo, 2002). This calls for the development
of further methodologies that could broaden the available set of measures, but also make more
difﬁcult the use of speciﬁc performance indicators.
Therefore, if we adopt a stakeholder view of the ﬁrm in order to design sustainability accounting
systems, we should also understand how the stakeholder relationships and the related engagement
processes could impact the quantity and quality of performance indicators aimed at monitoring the corporate
sustainability. This perspective could dramatically change the way managers and stakeholders
assess ﬁrms, their success and their role in the society.
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