Journal of Cleaner Production 412 (2023) 137186

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Journal of Cleaner Production

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jclepro

Review

Is academic recommendation translated into the European Union corporate

sustainability reporting directive proposal?
Jan Michalak a, *, Piotr Staszkiewicz b, Halina Waniak-Michalak a
a
University of Lodz, Management Faculty, Accounting Department, Lodz, Poland
b
Warsaw School of Economics, Collegium of Corporate Finance and Investment, Warsaw, Poland

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Handling Editor: Jian Zuo The study explores the area of academic policy recommendation translated and untranslated into the directive
proposal. We utilise the unique moment of the European Nonfinancial Reporting Directive modernisation to
JEL classification: examine recommendation exclusion and inclusion from the perspective of Resource Based Theory (RBT). We
K32 hypothesised that the research community impacts policymakers and researchers with rare resources gain a
K22
competitive advantage in this process. We applied a combination of methods - bibliometrics analysis, content
M4
analysis, and statistical testing techniques - to analyse the literature policy recommendations related to the 2014/
Q56
95/EU directive from 2003 to 2021. The majority of papers do not formulate direct policy recommendations. We
Keywords:
do not observe significant differences in untranslated recommendations between authors possessing human re­
Corporate sustainability reporting
CSR sources, while organisational resources decrease the impact. We find that access to financial resources increases
Nonfinancial reporting translation chances. We suggest the need for a more consistent communication protocol between the research
Policy implications community and policymakers and highlight the role of funding resources in translating results into policymaking
2014/95/EU inclusion.
Resource based theory

1. Introduction popular research area, especially after the implementation of Directive

In fifteen years, scientific production has doubled, while global gross
domestic product increased by one and a half times.1 Thus, the potential
interaction of scientific effort and economic policy attracts researchers’
attention from different areas applying various research methods (Ped­
ersen et al., 2020; Reale et al., 2018). There is a general belief that
research investments should lead to policy enhancement for society’s
benefit (Williams, 2020). Therefore, this study aims to examine the ex­
istence of linkages between papers’ policy recommendations and the
actual law provision through the lens of the Resource Based Theory
(RBT). It utilises the natural experiment of the modernisation of corpo­
rate disclosure law in the European Union (EU) to resolve the problem.
Our paper is motivated by the existence of a research gap in the
growing body of Nonfinancial Reporting (NFR) literature discussion.
NFR embraces a wide range of corporate reports covering nonfinancial
data. It includes, among others, Corporate Social Responsibility Reports,
Sustainability Reports, and Integrated Reports. NFR has become a
(2014)/95/EU. Di Vaio et al. (2020), Korca and Costa (2021), and Turzo
et al. (2022) examined studies that addressed the Directive and NFR. Di
Vaio et al. (2020) found that the debate in the literature, including the
2014/95/EU Directive, mainly concentrated on its impact on the quality
of the disclosure. They also concluded that companies are not able to
identify the “right framework” about the nature of the information to
provide in the NFR (Dumay et al., 2019) as well as it is not so clear “how”
the information on environmental and social performance has to be
communicated. Turzo et al. (2022) identified eight main clusters in NFR
research, including the content of nonfinancial reports, the Integrated
Reporting (IR) framework, the effect of NFR on firm-level accounting
variables, the relationship between governance and NFR practices, the
theoretical perspectives underlying NFR practices, NFR assurance
practices, the relationship between institutional factors and NFR
decoupling practices, and environmental reporting.
Korca and Costa (2021) analysed the distribution of articles by time
and country dimensions and called for an analysis “of […] regulation” (p.

* Corresponding author. Matejki 22/26, 90-237, Lodz, Poland.

E-mail address: jan.michalak@uni.lodz.pl (J. Michalak).
1
In 2003 there were 1.2 million published scientific and technical journal articles while in 2018 it reached 2.5 million. The global GDP of 53.5 trillion (2003) rose
to 82.9 trillion as of 2018 - constant 2010 US$ (World Bank, 2021).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2023.137186
Received 17 October 2022; Received in revised form 8 April 2023; Accepted 11 April 2023
Available online 1 May 2023
0959-6526/© 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
J. Michalak et al.
418). They point out an actual gap as the NFR research impact on policy
enacting remains an underexplored but important area as Corley and
Gioia (2011) remarked, “practical utility’s role in theoretical contribution
seems to receive mainly lip service” (p. 18). Since 2011 some aspects of
practical utility as regards regulation have been addressed. Studies have
already investigated the overall role of NFR regulation (Cupertino et al.,
2022; Jackson et al., 2020; La Torre et al., 2018; Baboukardos and
Rimmel, 2016; Monciardini, 2016), NFR regulation’s impact on corpo­
rations (Agostini et al., 2022; Stolowy and Paugam, 2018; Ioannou and
Serafeim, 2017), and its economic (primarily capital market) conse­
quences (Rossignoli et al. 2022; Chen et al., 2018; Ioannou and Serafeim,
2017), but NFR research impact on policy formulation remains an
underexplored area, what implies important research gap; thus we aim
to shed light on it. This gap was also identified and highlighted by
Garcia-Torea et al. (2020 p. 289), who called for understanding of
substantive issues, such as the role of academics and the public interest
in the area of nonfinancial reporting.
We explore a change in directives in terms of the EU publishing the
new Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) Proposal
(European Commission, 2021), which revises the Nonfinancial Report­
ing Directive (NFRD) (European Parliament and the Council, 2014). We
examine whether the policy recommendations made in the academic
papers have been incorporated into the revision of the directive. We also
investigate which resources increase the researchers’ chance of having
the recommendations included in the new directive proposal through
the RBT lens. Our paper focuses on NFR recommendations made for
companies, as CRSD proposal targets enterprises.
We apply the EU reform as it is one of the biggest economies in the
world that has undergone a widening of the compulsory NFR discourse.
The NFR obligation was substantially addressed by the research com­
munity (Ottenstein et al., 2022; Korca and Costa, 2021; Carungu et al.,
2020; Dumay et al., 2016). Thus, the EU reform builds up an environ­
ment where cross-country and geopolitical effects can be controlled
without substantial loss of generality.
This research utilises a bibliometric literature review and content
analysis of the NFR literature and offers an in-house extension to the
already presented systematic reviews (Di Vaio et al., 2020; Mata et al.,
2018; Turzo et al., 2022).
We analysed 187 documents from the Web of Science (WoS)2 and
Scopus3 databases. We manually conducted a content analysis of the
policy recommendations included in these articles. Subsequently, we
identified significant dimensions of the CSRD changes versus the NFRD
and mapped the literature policy recommendation to these dimensions.
We tested the significance of the average policy recommendation at the
specific layer and verified the robustness of the analysis across the various
treatments of the data sources. This kind of research, to our knowledge, is
the first to link the NFR and policy implication literature development.
Our research offers two broad literature contributions. Firstly,
following Bebbington (2013), Garcia-Torea et al. (2020), and Korca and
Costa (2021), we provide robust evidence on deficiency in policy rec­
ommendations formulation across directive NFR literature. We docu­
ment a significant lack of policy recommendations for 65% of the WoS
and 41% of the Scopus-indexed documents. Therefore, we argue that the
authors’ collaborative scientific effort is lost by not making recom­
mendations to policymakers in their papers. Even if some authors offer
policy recommendations, the impact on CSRD is diluted. Thus, to
enhance the readership base and scope of influence, we call for more
emphasis on how to translate the rigorous results into meaningful
recommendations.
2
Web of Science (previously known as Web of Knowledge) was originally
produced by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) and is run by Clarivate
Analytics (previously the Intellectual Property and Science business of Thomson
Reuters) (Clarivate Analytics, 2016).
3
Elsevier’s abstract and citation database launched in 2004.
2
Journal of Cleaner Production 412 (2023) 137186
Secondly, we address the RBT concept explored by Collins (2021),
Eisend and Schmidt (2014), and Ryu and Choi (2016). Our results
contradict the expectation derived based on the RBT. Namely, human
resources are not linked with the policy recommendation inclusion in the
directive proposal (Collins, 2021; Grant, 1996; Mueller, 1996), while
financial resources are. We add to the earlier discussions of Collins (2021),
Eisend and Schmidt (2014), and Van Rijnsoever et al. (2008) that partic­
ipation in research networks might limit the ability to formulate policy
recommendations directly transferable into legal provisions.
The paper offers the following implications. First, research commu­
nity and policymakers need to develop a more consistent communica­
tion protocol. Second, funding resources (grants) play an important role
in translating results into policymaking inclusion, so we contend that the
more substantial inclusion of social impact (together with policy rec­
ommendations) into the grants assignment procedures.
The rest of the article is organised as follows. Section 2 provides the
literature review and hypothesis development. Section 3 describes the
research design (methodology, data and sampling). Section 4 presents
the results. The article concludes with the results’ discussion, conclu­
sions and limitations.
2. Literature review and hypothesis development
2.1. Historical development
NFR has been evolving over the past fifty years. It embraces publicly
available information on organisational policies and performance in­
dicators not covered by mainstream financial reporting (Jackson et al.,
2020; Stolowy and Paugam, 2018, Adamska and Dąbrowski, 2021). It is
aimed at making organisations more accountable in the areas of social
and environmental impact and at the provision of more detailed insight
into governance issues. NFR stems primarily from social and environ­
mental accounting theory and practice. Gray (2001) identified three
primary sources of contemporary NFR: social audit reports, environ­
mental disclosures in annual reports, and environmental reports.
Environmental and, later, social responsibility reports were volun­
tary reports prepared by firms mainly from the oil extraction, mining,
processing, and chemical industries. As a consequence of the corporate
scandals related to environmental disasters and violations of human and
labour rights, these companies decided to improve their legitimation by
publishing voluntary reports presenting their decreasing negative
impact on the environment and society (Lippai-Makra et al., 2022;
Manes-Rossi et al., 2018). Since the 1990s, a growing number of ini­
tiatives aimed at NFR improvement have been developed, including
Global Compact guidelines, Intellectual Capital guidelines, Global
Reporting Initiative (GRI) standards, and IR frameworks. Until the first
decade of the 21st century, NFR improvement initiatives were of a
voluntary nature; however, policymakers across the global jurisdictions
have commenced formal enacting of NFR.
2.2. Policy evolution of mandatory reporting in the European Union
Since the first decade of the 21st century, we have seen an increase in
efforts to introduce mandatory NFR in many jurisdictions. One of the
first such initiatives was the introduction of a mandatory NFR in South
Africa. In February 2010, the Johannesburg Stock Exchange decided
that 400 listed companies would be required to prepare an IR (Babou­
kardos and Rimmel, 2016; Dumay et al., 2016). China’s environmental
information disclosure policy on February 8, 2007 is another example of
mandatory nonfinancial reporting implementation focusing on pollution
emission, which is effective for local governments (cf. Kosajan et al.,
2018) and enterprises (Zhang et al., 2010; Wang, 2018). Some EU
members, as well as, other countries all over the world, including, India,
and Norway, followed these initiatives.
The EU Single Market Act indicates that the EC intends to present
proposals for the legal regulation of reporting on social and
J. Michalak et al.
environmental aspects of company operations. The intention materi­
alised with NFRD. This directive considerably changed the corporate
NFR landscape in most European countries, making NFR mandatory for
all large firms. The next step in the enforcement of NFR in the EU was the
development of the CSRD proposal, which proposes an enlargement of
the existing reporting requirements of the NFRD.
The CSRD foresees the adoption of EU sustainability reporting stan­
dards which would be developed by the European Financial Reporting
Advisory Group (EFRAG). The EC set up the Technical Expert Group on
Sustainable Finance, which proposed a Taxonomy of environmentally
sustainable economic activities (Slevin et al., 2020). The CSRD proposal
for a directive amends the Accounting Directive 2013/34/EU, the
Transparency Directive 2004/109/EC, the Audit Regulation No
537/2014, and the Audit Directive 2006/43/EC. The CRSD proposal
enhances already existing sustainability-related disclosures in the
financial services sector (SFDR)4 initiative. The CSRD requires around
49,000 (the scope of the NFRD was ca 12,000) companies across Europe
to disclose Environment, Social, and Governance (ESG) related infor­
mation, set up a framework for assurance, and open an avenue for the
convergence of comparability of sustainability information. In compar­
ison to the NFRD, the CSRD introduces additional requirements in terms
of i) scope of application, ii) assurance obligation, iii) scope of disclosure,
iv) standardisation of disclosure, and v) data digitalisation.
2.3. Research recommendation translation and resources availability
NFR has become a popular research area (Korca and Costa, 2021).
Academics may engage in policymaking in numerous ways (Cairney and
Oliver, 2018). They can provide insightful inputs for developing,
implementing, and monitoring regulations in their area of expertise
(Lippai-Makra et al., 2022; Garcia-Torea et al., 2020; Bebbington, 2013).
Their legitimate participation in the regulatory process results from both
their disciplinary knowledge and the results of their research (Beb­
bington et al., 2017).
The first and most related to their daily routine engagement activity
is conducting rigorous and relevant research that has the potential to be
used for the development and monitoring of new reporting policies and
standards. Typically literature reviews seem to be a potentially valuable
source of input for policymakers as they gather results of numerous
studies, and often their ambition is to offer future research and policy
implications (Carungu et al., 2020; Dumay et al., 2016, 2019; Korca and
Costa, 2021) especially if policy recommendations are directly formu­
lated from the research (the hard impact).
Besides the hard impact, there also exists a soft impact. Fülbier et al.
(2009) and Bebbington et al. (2017) point out the direct inclusion of
scientists in the policymaking process by embracing board and com­
mittee memberships, participation in consultative groups or expert
panels, and submitting responses to consultative documents (the soft
impact). In addition, Biondi et al. (2020) found evidence for a direct link
between academia and other actors’ collaboration power and trans­
lation of private standards into binding rules. Some researchers indicate
that engagement of academics in policymaking is not an entirely
trouble-free process (Garcia-Torea et al., 2020; Singleton-Green, 2010;
Fülbier et al., 2009; Schipper, 1994). They argue that an expectation gap
exists and suggest the following reasons for its existence. First, policy­
makers expect researchers to provide straightforward and comprehen­
sive answers to questions they perceive relevant to the policymaking
process (Fülbier et al., 2009). However, it is hardly realisable apart from
research projects funded by policymakers. Cairney (2015) comments
further that “the cognitive ability of policymakers, and their ability to
gather information, is limited, and so they tend to rely on trial-and-error
4
The disclosures regulation was adopted by co-legislators in spring 2019 and
was published on 9 December 2019 in the Official Journal and applied from 10
March 2021.
3
Journal of Cleaner Production 412 (2023) 137186
strategies when developing policy” (p. 27). Second, both research results
and academics’ recommendations are inconclusive, impairing their
informativeness for regulation (Rutherford, 2011; Singleton-Green,
2010; Fülbier et al., 2009). The inconclusiveness results from various
theoretical frameworks, research methods, and time and scope differ­
ences in research samples. Third, scientific journals are focused on ac­
ademic readers. Fourth, the problem can be the exclusion of the
researchers’ participation in policymaking and their relationships with
the media by research funding agencies (Anzivino et al., 2021).
In consequence, articles published in research papers contain so­
phisticated information about research methods and results and are
written in hardly comprehensible language. It hinders regulators’
interpretation and use of results (Garcia-Torea et al., 2020; Fülbier et al.,
2009). Fifth, partially due to access to empirical data and the length of
the publication process, research findings are often not timely enough to
impact new regulations (Fülbier et al., 2009). Similarly, Dumay et al.
(2016) conclude that this may be due to the long lead time of the
research and publication process. Those mentioned above, primarily
judgemental anecdotal pieces of evidence, fail to present the existence
and magnitude of the direct link between policy recommendations
included in papers and their actual translation into legal provisions.
Therefore, with this study, to limit subjectivity and judgement, we
bypass the aspects of the soft impact and examine the existence of the
direct linkage in the context of the EU.
The NFRD was the subject of numerous studies. Korca and Costa
(2021) examined 78 studies spanning seven years (2014–2020) that
address Directive 2014/95/EU. They analysed the distribution of arti­
cles by time and country dimensions, observing the peak of interest in
Directive (2014)/95/EU in the year 2018, and found that the most active
researchers in the area were from Italy, Poland, Germany, Spain, and the
UK. They identified three basic theoretical approaches, namely: stake­
holder, institutional, and legitimacy theory. Korca and Costa (2021)
appeal that “future research could inform regulatory processes and guide
policy decisions from the EU governing bodies in the field of accounting and
SED in particular”. In the area of regulation implications, they argued
that NFRD and, in consequence, CSRD implementation should be a
process continuously improving over time. They called for “a collabo­
rative approach between companies and EU governing bodies through
structured consulting events could positively impact the adoption and impact
of SED regulation” (Korca and Costa, 2021, p. 418). However, there is no
research documenting that this process takes place.
Analysis of current NFR literature studies indicates, however, that
those policy recommendations were not a subject of explicit study even
though many researchers call for it. Thus, following Bebbington’s (2013)
and Garcia-Torea et al.’s (2020) views, this paper hypothesises that.
H01. NFRD literature recommendations impact the CSRD provisions.
Once we gain insight on the scope of the translation of policy
recommendation, the further aspects relate to the critical resources that
condition the translation of recommendations into the directive
proposal.
Former studies on NFR used mainly legitimacy theory, stakeholders
theory, institutional theory, voluntary disclosure theory, and signalling
theory (Korca and Costa, 2021). In order to broaden the understating of
the NFR, we decided to expand the theoretical lens and use RBT. RBT
offers a promising explanation of other factors influencing success rec­
ommendations to the directive proposal. RBT has been widely used at
the level of organisations (firms) mainly for the description of the cre­
ation and sustaining competitive advantage and superior performance of
firms (Barney, 1991) and in this research area is widely disseminated
(Acedo et al., 2006; Hitt et al., 2016; Awan et al., 2018). However, in our
study, we apply it to the level of individual researchers and groups of
scientists, following Van Rijnsoever et al. (2008), Eisend and Schmidt
(2014), Ryu and Choi (2016), and Collins (2021).
RBT uses two main conceptual elements competitive advantage and
resources. Competitive advantage has been used mainly in the firms’
J. Michalak et al.
competition environment; however, scientists also operate in a
competitive environment. The competition between researchers was
analysed by Latour and Woolgar (1979). They described the competition
as the credibility cycle in which scientists work for (peer) recognition
that, in the long run, leads to new funding for research and, again
recognition. From this perspective, scientists can be perceived as
fighting for a competitive advantage.
We understand the competitive advantage of researchers as the
successful implementation of strategies that enhance their comprehen­
sive impact. Ravenscroft et al. (2017) define the term comprehensive
impact as “the broad impact of scientific research upon human society
(including cultural and economic impact) and the natural environment”
(p. 2). In turn, social impact indicates “the contribution of the research
to the social capital including among others stimulating new approaches
to social issues, informed public debate, and improved policymaking”
(Bornmann, 2013, p. 218). Therefore, in our study, we define the
competitive advantage of researchers as their ability to produce social
impact (cf. Rau et al., 2018) - in particular, the ability to influence the
shape of the CRSD proposal.
Resources embrace assets, capabilities, attributes, and information
controlled by a researcher or a group of researchers, enabling them to gain
a competitive advantage. Following the assumptions of the RBT, resources
should possess characteristics that could qualify them as sources of
competitive advantage, including rareness, inimitability, and non-
substitutability. For this study, we classify the resources into the
following categories: human, organisational (managerial), and financial
resources.
Human resources are perceived as core resources in scientific activ­
ities – the number and competencies of researchers conducting a
research project work on an article and translate into the available
knowledge of the competing researchers’ teams. Research project teams
enable various forms of spontaneous cooperation and skill-formation
activities. In turn, it produces tacit knowledge that may result in a
competitive advantage (Collins, 2021; Grant, 1996; Mueller, 1996).
In the previous studies using RBT on the level of individual re­
searchers various measures of human capital were utilised. Van Rijn­
soever et al. (2008) focused on work experience and global
innovativeness as elements of human capital. They measured work
experience using number of years of experience, number of previous
functions at other institutions and additional changes. The authors
measured global innovativeness with the adapted version of the inno­
vativeness scale developed by Kirton (1976). Van Rijnsoever et al.
(2008) gathered the data using a questionnaire that was administered
among the scientific employees working at their home (Utrecht Uni­
versity). Ryu and Choi (2016) proposed other measure of human re­
sources (researcher capability) – percentage of Ph.D.s held by project
researchers. We decided to use straightforward measure of human
capital – the number of papers’ authors because our study focuses on the
joint author effort. Organisational (managerial) resources in scientific
collaboration include, among other things, cooperation techniques.
Collins (2021) highlights the importance of organisational (managerial)
resources in effectively deploying employee-based resources and,
consequently, gaining a competitive advantage. We posit that teams of
researchers who collaborate longer on research projects and publish a
series of articles on a given topic develop cooperation techniques and
acquire organisational resources helpful in scientific competition. In
order to include organisational resources in our study we developed
dummy variable - participation in network. Van Rijnsoever et al. (2008),
Eisend and Schmidt (2014), Ryu and Choi (2016) included similar
variables in their studies.
Financial resources are not always seen as particularly important
from an RBT perspective. For leading companies and researchers,
obtaining financial resources is usually not difficult. For most re­
searchers, however, financial resources are often scarce resources, as the
crisis in 2008 resulted in a long period of austerity that hit particularly
hard the higher education and research sector (Clarke et al., 2018; Irvine
4
Journal of Cleaner Production 412 (2023) 137186
and Ryan, 2019). In many countries, the reduction has been accompa­
nied by substantial changes in how such funding has been allocated. An
increasing part of the funding has been distributed in the form of
research grants and on performance-based rules (Whitley et al., 2018).
Obtaining additional financing in the form of a research grant facilitates
research by covering the costs of the study, such as salaries of re­
searchers and research assistants, costs of organising focus groups or
interviews, travel, and access to equipment and databases. Therefore,
access to financial resources may result in a higher amount and quality
of other resources. Ryu and Choi (2016) measured the financial re­
sources by amounts of government and company (in millions of won).
We propose a simpler version of the measure of the financial resources -
a binary variable: the value of one if the project received financing from
any source, zero otherwise.
Former research using the RBT framework focused on the impact of
resources and used strategies on scientists’ research performance
(Eisend and Schmidt, 2014), commercial output (Ryu and Choi, 2016)
and career development (Van Rijnsoever et al., 2008). Results of the
study by Eisend and Schmidt (2014) highlight that the researcher’s
knowledge resources (including language skills, research experience,
and foreign market knowledge) combined with a collaboration-based
internationalisation strategy positively influence the performance
(measured with the number of citations). The results also indicate that a
collaboration-based internationalisation strategy improves the out­
comes of young scientists to a more significant extent than more expe­
rienced ones. Ryu and Choi (2016) confirmed that access to financial
resources (government and corporate funding) and nonfinancial re­
sources (research capability, R&D type) are the major determinants of
academic and commercial outputs. Van Rijnsoever et al. (2008) focused
on various types of networks as critically valuable resources for scien­
tists for acquiring contracts, funding, and the development of their ca­
reers. They found that networking with one’s own faculty and with
researchers from other universities stimulates careers, while coopera­
tion with industry does not.
As mentioned, the RBT framework concentrated on the influence of
resources and used strategies on scientists’ research performance,
commercial output, and career development. We find a research gap in
the area of the influence of researchers’ resources social impact in the
form of improved policymaking. Therefore, we formulate our second
hypothesis as follows.
H02. Policy recommendation of researchers possessing scarce re­
sources is incorporated into the CRSD.
As we expect that the direct hard impact is conditioned on the re­
sources available to the researcher or research team.
3. Research design
3.1. Methodology
Our approach is neither a pure systematic literature review nor a
bibliometric analysis (Di Vaio et al., 2020; Mata et al., 2018; Turzo et al.,
2022). To answer our research question, we merged the bibliometric,
content analysis with some replicability aspects of the systematic re­
view; thus, we organised our research design into eight steps.
Simplifying our approach, we identified significant dimensions of the
CSRD changes versus the NFRD. We set up a corpus of the CSRD/NFRD
literature. Subsequently, we identified and mapped the literature policy
recommendations in our corpus to these dimensions to check the scope
of the literature recommendation implemented in CSRD. In line with the
RBT, we identified authors of the collaboration network and potentially
discriminating factors using bibliometrics techniques. Due to the limited
population size, we did not apply advanced statistical methods. Instead,
we tested with Welch two simple t-tests, the mean differences between
translated and untranslated recommendations across the factors. We
perform robustness testing in respect of the literature identification,
J. Michalak et al.
Table 1
Coding tags definition.
Tag (dimension) Label Definition of recommendation
name
SCOPE SC Extends the scope of the legislation to all large
companies and all companies listed on regulated
markets
ASSURANCE AS Imposes the audit (assurance) obligation of reported
information
DISCLOSURE DS Request for more detailed reporting requirements
STANDARD ST A requirement to report according to mandatory EU
sustainability reporting standards
DIGITALISATION DI A requirement to apply a digital taxonomy (tags) for
the reported information
UNALLOCATED UN All others not categorised to above mentioned and
not translated into the directive proposal
mapping consistency, data sources stability, and testing assumptions.
Precisely, our approach consists of eight steps, namely.
Step 1. The NFRD literature corpus identification.
Step 2. The CRSD vs NFRD implementation areas coding.
Step 3. Code NFRD literature direct and indirect recommendations.
Step 4. Identification of untranslated NFRD literature recommenda­
tion (Step 3) into CSRD implementation areas (Step 2) – test H01
Step 5. Identification of authors’ collaboration networks.
Step 6. Categorising the untranslated recommendation.
Step 7. Testing differences between translated and untranslated rec­
ommendations - test H02
Step 8. Robustness and stability testing of results.
Step 1: We searched major bibliometrics databases WoS and Scopus
with the keywords “Nonfinancial Reporting Directive” or “2014/95/
EU”. We broadly follow PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for
Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses) for corpus identification,
screening, and eligibility (Azril et al., 2021; Liberati et al., 2009; Xiao
and Watson, 2019, Awan et al., 2022). Initially, to preserve the
consistency of the data (specifically the citation count), we analysed
both sources separately. We screened the titles, keywords, and ab­
stracts to exclude irrelevant papers. We included articles, books,
chapters, and reviews to broaden the initial corpus. We test the
robustness of corpus identification and stability of results with
different search keywords, citations, and reference reviews. We
report those tests in Step 8.
Step 2: We identified the significant changes in CRSD vs NFRD. To
prevent judgment in the coding tags (dimensions), we applied pre-
defined areas indicated on the EU official web page (European
Commission, 2021). Table 1 summarises the tag (dimension) labels
and definitions.
Step 3: We coded the literature corpus identified in Step 1 for policy
recommendations. We coded whether the paper offers direct or in­
direct policy recommendations (two binary variables). If a recom­
mendation is formulated, we allocate it as per the Table 1
classification. The multi-coding was allowed at this step. For
example, Herold et al.’s (2021) recommendation of monitoring
mechanisms we classify as direct AS dimensions, while Tang and
Demeritt (2018) call for “wider policy questions about the effec­
tiveness of transparency requirements”, which we labelled as unal­
located (UN).
All authors initially coded a sample of documents to determine the
suitability of the adopted frameworks and to determine the consistency.
5
Journal of Cleaner Production 412 (2023) 137186
Table 2
Variables definitions.
Variable Definition
Human resources (No of authors) A number of authors of the paper
Organisational resources A binary variable: the value of one if at least one
(Participation in Network) author of the paper was identified in the co-
citation networks as shown in Fig. 2
Financial resources (Grants A binary variable: the value of one if the project
obtained) received financing from any source, zero
otherwise
Control variable 1 (Source: WoS) A binary variable of value if the paper was
indexed in the WoS, zero otherwise.
Control variable 2 (Maturity of A number of years from publication till 2021,
the paper) rounded up to a full year, in case of online first
equal to one.
Articles were coded by all three authors, thus following O’Connor and
Joffe (2020) we used Cohen’s Kappa as an intercoder reliability mea­
sure. Our pilot coding attempt generated Cohen’s Kappa score of 0.743.
After the improvement of our coding protocol, we obtained Cohen’s
Kappa equal to 0.960 in line with Neuendorf (2002) 5 we consider
satisfactory for further steps.
Step 4: We matched the dimensions identified in Step 2 Table 1
against the coded policy recommendation in Step 3 to arrive at the
untranslated recommendations. We tested the significance of the
dimension in literature recommendation, applying t-statistics and
the Wilcoxon rank test.
Step 5: In order to identify the authors’ collaboration networks, this
paper applies a network where nodes are authors and links are au­
thorships, as it is the most documented form of scientific collabora­
tion (Moed et al., 2004). Based on the authors’ collaborations, we
created a collection of bibliographic networks following the
approach proposed by Batagelj and Cerinšek (2013) and Aria and
Cuccurullo (2021, 2017).
Step 6: We narratively analysed the untranslated recommendations
and grouped them into homogenous groups to get insight into the
research direction not recognised in legislation.
Step 7: We applied the two-sided, two-sample Welch t-test and Wil­
coxon rank test to identify the differences in the significant RBT types
of resources relating to the papers to test H2. Table 2 presents the
variable definitions and types of resources. The development of the
variables is discussed in section 2.3 in the part concerning hypothesis
H02.
Step 8: The identification of the literature corpus is fragile due to the
keyword selections; the literature coding requires a consistent
approach among the research team, while the t-test of mean differ­
ences requires the meeting of the distribution form. Those potential
disturbances were cross tests and verified with the application of a
different subset of keywords, mapping subsampling and recoding,
and nonparametric testing of a two-sided Wilcoxon rank sum test
with continuity correction. We report this step as the isolated ap­
pendix for main text consistency.
For calculations, we applied R programming (R Core Team, 2021),
particularly the RStudio (RStudio Team, 2021) and bibliometrics library
(Aria & Cuccurullo, 2021, 2017) on data from the WoS and Scopus.
3.2. Data and sampling
Social science researchers typically retrieve publications from the
WoS or Scopus databases to conduct bibliometric analyses (Echchakoui,
5
Neuendorf (2002) reviewed “rules of thumb” that exist for interpreting ICR
values, observing ICR figures over 0.9 are acceptable by all, and over 0.8
acceptable by many, but there is considerable disagreement below that.
J. Michalak et al.
2020). The WoS centres on English-language journals (Archambault
et al., 2006), provides broader time coverage (Goodman, 2007), and
focuses on highly reliable scientific studies (Staszkiewicz, 2019; Zyoud
et al., 2017). In contrast, Scopus offers broader source coverage. Since
neither the WoS nor Scopus show a clear advantage for bibliometric
synthesis purposes (Sánchez et al., 2017) but provide a different range of
available data, this paper applies a two-stage sampling approach. In the
first stage, the WoS data are analysed; in the second (robustness test)
using Scopus, the incremental article identified in Scopus is used for the
results stability testing. Contrary to Echchakoui (2020), we avoid
merging the dataset to maintain consistency with the citation count data
and control for the methodological differences across both bibliometric
data sources (Aria and Cuccurullo, 2021).
4. Results
We present results in line with our methodological steps.
4.1. Step 1: WoS and scopus data structure
Table 3 presents the overview of the literature identified in the WoS
and Scopus. The WoS returned 102 documents, and Scopus produced 87
papers. Both databases shared 33 common documents.
The WoS and Scopus differ in time span, the WoS has indexed data
since 2003, while Scopus since 2015. Both datasets report nearly the
same number of sources (47 and 48) but a different number of docu­
ments, the WoS above a hundred, while Scopus nearly ninety.
The retrieved periods of discussion span between 2003 and 2021,
and it was substantially accumulated after the NFRD implementation
(Fig. 1). The WoS provides data for 2003–2021 while Scopus for
2015–2021; therefore, our result aligns with Goodman’s (2007) obser­
vation that the WoS offers more extended time coverage.
A substantial part of the academic discussion took place after the
enactment of NFRD. Fig. 1 presents a comparison of the number of pa­
pers indexed each year for the period 2003–2021.
The number of papers extracted from the WoS and Scopus correlates
with 0.975 since 2015 (inception of Scopus); thus, both sources report
similar dynamics. The change in trend for 2021 is due to the lack of an
entire year date (cut off in May 2021). From a chronological point of
view, it can be seen (Fig. 1) how NFRD studies, the first of which orig­
inated in Denmark and Sweden (Kristensen and Westlund, 2003),
advanced in various countries, particularly Italy (Pizzi et al., 2021a,b).
4.2. Steps 2–4: impact analysis
The most basic results are that out of 102 and 87 documents in the
WoS and Scopus, respectively, we were unable to identify the recom­
mendation for 66 and 36 documents (65% and 41%, respectively).
Table 4 presents the average number of direct and indirect policy
implications in the WoS (Panel A) and Scopus (Panel B). The total
number of policy implications relating to the changes in NFRD and
outside is significant. The disclosure and digitalisation dimensions
aren’t present for either the WoS or Scopus. The specific NFRD di­
mensions significantly vary across data sources and types of
implications.
4.3. Step 5: authors’ collaboration networks
Irrespective of the data source, the most integrated co-authorship
network is one comprising: Cosma, Pizzi, Leopizzi, Caputo6 and
6
More specifically Fabio Caputo from Università del Salento - Piazza Tan­
credi (Italy) while Andrea Caputo (Pizzi et al., 2020) from the University of
Trento (Italy) and the University of Lincoln (United Kingdom) in the sample is
not a member of the network.
6
Journal of Cleaner Production 412 (2023) 137186
Venturelli (main network) interrelated through numerous papers
(Caputo et al., 2021; Caputo et al., 2019; Cosma et al., 2021; Leopizzi
et al., 2020; Pizzi et al. 2021a,b; Pizzi et al., 2021a,b; Venturelli et al.,
2019; Venturelli et al., 2017). Fig. 2 shows a detailed presentation of
network groups.
The second group consists of Tiron-Tudor, Nicolo, Zanellato, Stefa­
nescu (WoS) or Manes-Rossi (Scopus). The leading network produced
eight papers (13%). We were unable to identify the policy recommen­
dation represented, which is below the group averages both in the WoS
and Scopus.
4.4. Step 6: classification of untranslated recommendations
We classified the untranslated recommendations into five categories:
academia involvement, guidelines, dialogue, monitoring, and specifics.
The first category (academia involvement) concerns recommendations
for increased cooperation between politicians and academics. The rec­
ommendations are about the use of research results and the participation
of academics in regulatory debates (Garcia-Torea et al., 2020). The au­
thors state, “Academics have a responsibility to intervene in regulatory
processes to increase corporate transparency” (p 281).
Most articles (47.06% in the WoS) encourage policymakers to pre­
pare guidelines that would help companies prepare NFR correctly and
organise training for managers. Williams et al. (2021) state that “policy
implications also arise to the need for the development of quality
assurance guidelines and further education and training” (p. 314). Pizzi
et al. (2021a,b) argue: “accounting scholars could provide further con­
tributions to the political debate through the evolution of the “com­
ply-or-explain” principle’s strategies over the years” (p. 30).
Fiandrinoet al. (2019) add that it would help overcome “both the poli­
cy–practices decoupling and the means-ends decoupling that companies
are currently facing” (p. 1035).
One of the articles analysed pointed to the need for dialogue between
politicians and practitioners. Fiandrino and Tonelli (2021) accused
regulators of not considering the recommendations of entrepreneurs:
“the ranking of the four main issues (NFI quality, standardisation, ma­
teriality, and assurance) that emerged from the annexed documents,
together with the questionnaire responses, could be considered by the
EU regulator in revising NFRD” (p. 14).
Two articles point to the need to monitor the reporting process
(monitoring). Fiandrino et al. (2019) state: “regulators are called to
monitor the concrete implementation of sustainability issues beyond a
tick the box approach” (p. 1035). Mazzotta et al. (2020) add: “policy­
makers are required to enforce the NFI disclosure laws and insist on
compliance through continuous monitoring” (p. 1911).
Almost 30% of the articles focus on recommendations to policy­
makers and regulators on the need to consider the specific circumstances
of different industries (specifics), e.g., controversial industries, banks, or
capital groups. Szabó and Sørensen (2017) indicate: “Even if groups of
undertakings are regulated, it is normally not done with the specific aim
of promoting integration within the group. But the new reporting re­
quirements and other international CSR frameworks appear to be based
on the underlying assumption that groups have a single CSR policy
implemented by the head of the group (normally the ultimate parent
undertaking)" and “it may, however, not be unproblematic to prepare
such nonfinancial consolidated statements or to implement uniform CSR
policies in groups of undertakings. Even if it is possible to do so, it may
have unforeseen consequences for the parent undertaking. Thus, the
agenda pursued explicitly by the CSR frameworks and implicitly by the
Nonfinancial Reporting Directive concerning groups of undertakings
may face problems when confronted with the reality of company law
and other areas of law” (pp. 137–138).
4.5. Step 7: translated and untranslated recommendation differences
Table 5 presents the results of the comparison between translated
J. Michalak et al. Journal of Cleaner Production 412 (2023) 137186

Table 3
Identified population of paper’s descriptive data.
Description WoS Scopus Description WoS Scopus

MAIN INFORMATION ABOUT DATA AUTHORS

Timespan 2003:2021 2015:2021 Authors 238 178

Sources (Journals, Books, etc.) 47 48 Author Appearances 279 225
Documents 102 87 Authors of single-authored documents 10 14
Average years from publication 3.38 2 Authors of multi-authored documents 228 164
Average citations per document 19.05 8.172
Average citations per year per doc 3.633 2.337
References 5593 5466

DOCUMENT TYPES AUTHORS COLLABORATION

Article 90 66 Single-authored documents 11 17

Article; early access/Book chaptera 4 9 Documents per Author 0.429 0.489
Article; proceedings paper/Conference papersa 1 9 Authors per Document 2.33 2.05
Editorial material 2 Co-Authors per Documents 2.74 2.59
Review 5 3 Collaboration Index 2.51 2.34
a
Relates to Scopus.

Fig. 1. The number of papers indexed by years in the WoS and Scopus.

and untranslated policy recommendations into CSRD across variables
enumerated in Table 2.
Our results reported in Table 5 are subject to the size and variable
distribution. As we were unable to confirm all factors’ normality, we
cross-checked our result with a nonparametric test, which is not
conditioned on the distribution. Table 6 presents the Wilcoxon rank test
on factors enumerated in Table 2.
The cross-test results confirm the results reported in Table 5.
Our results are unexpected. We did not confirm the existence of a
statistically significant association between the number of owned
human resources and the translation of recommendations. However, we
observed a correlation between the possessed organisational resources,
i.e., participation in the research network and the translation of rec­
ommendations. However, contradictory to our expectation this corre­
lation turned out to be negative. Fourth, we confirmed the existence of a
positive correlation between financial resources and translation of
recommendations.
5. Results discussion
Our most basic observation is that empirical and conceptual docu­
ments often fail to present a direct policy recommendation (65% - WoS
and 41% - Scopus), which supports Oliver and Cairney (2018) and others
(Dumay et al., 2016; Fülbier et al., 2009; Garcia-Torea et al., 2020;
Schipper, 1994; Singleton-Green, 2010; Tucker and Lowe, 2014) stating
that academia’s impact on policymaking is not fully efficient. We un­
derstand this result in a line of the researchers’ incentives model, where
a search for the discovery and unexplored areas outweighs policy
impact. Fülbier et al. (2009) and Singleton-Green (2010) suggest that
incentive systems for researchers foster focus almost solely on
publishing in highly ranked scientific journals. Subsequent research
(Garcia-Torea et al., 2020; Picard et al., 2019), as well as our results,
support this assertion.
5.1. Translation of policy recommendation
Table 4 (column All) consistently shows that the policy implications
that were formulated are translated into the CSRD; therefore, we did not
find evidence to reject the H01 hypothesis that NFRD literature impacts
the CSRD enacting process. But what is more critical the unallocated
dimension Table 4 (column Unallocated) is also significant in all in­
tersections; thus, we claim that not the entire NFRD policy implication
agenda is translated into CSRD legislation. This implies a potential loss
of scientific effort in the policy formulation process. We isolate these
aspects for further studies.
Our finding extends Cairney’s (2015) limited processing ability to
the research community as policy implication formulation varies across
papers and journals; thus, the journal policy and individual research
aptitude impact the ability to formulate the policy recommendation. The
lack of dominance of specific dimensions supports the theoretical irrel­
evance of operational changes and confirms prior studies (Fülbier et al.,
2009). In compliance with Schipper (1994), we observe the communi­
cation barrier in policy formulation. Since journals’ primary audience is
the academic community thus, the technical language of the contribu­
tions is seldomly translated into public-specific policy implications.
Former research using the RBT framework at individual researchers
and research team level explained the influence of resources and strategies
on scientists’ research performance, commercial output, and career
development. Interestingly, we found no confirmation of an association
between the quantity of human resources and the translation of

7
J. Michalak et al. Journal of Cleaner Production 412 (2023) 137186

Fig. 2. Authors (papers) networks.

Table 4
The average number of policy implications by papers and tags - WoS or Scopus.
Panel A WoS Scope Assurance Disclosure Standard Digit. All Unalloc.

SC AS DS ST DI ALL UN

Average number of implications by paper 0.009 0.039 0 0.0198 0 0.0693 0.1386

t-statistics 1 2.0307 NaN 1.4213 NaN 2.387 4.0115
p-value 0.3197 0.0449 NA 0.1583 NA 0.018 0.0001
Null hypothesis A R A A A R R
SC_IN AS_IN DS_IN ST_IN DI_IN ALL_IN UA_IN
Average number of implications by paper 0.0297 0.0396 0 0.0792 0 0.1485 0.0594
t-statistics 1.7496 2.0307 NaN 2.9329 NaN 3.8834 2.5131
p-value 0.0832 0.0449 NA 0.004 NA 0.0001 0.01356
Null hypothesis R R A R A R R
Panel B Scopus
SC AS DS ST DI ALL UA
Average number of implications by paper 0.0459 0.0344 0.0229 0.0689 0.0114 0.1839 0.2528
t-statistics 2.0358 1.7525 1.4225 2.524 1 2.6132 5.3952
p-value 0.04485 0.08324 0.1585 0.01344 0.3201 0.01059 0.0000
Null hypothesis R R A R A R R
SC_IN AS_IN DS_IN ST_IN DI_IN ALL_IN UA_IN
Average number of implications by paper 0.0229 0.0459 0 0.0919 0 0.3678 0.2068
t-statistics 1.4225 2.0358 NaN 2.9511 Na 6.2121 4.7365
p-value 0.1585 0.04485 NA 0.00408 NA 0.0000 0.0000
Null hypothesis A R A R A R R

A – no evidence for rejection, R – null hypotheses (true difference mean is equal to 0) rejected. Column’s acronyms AC to DI in line with Table 1, prefix _IN denotes the
indirect, while All represents the sum of the recommendation for dimension AC to DI; the All_IN represent sums of the recommendation for all dimensions with prefix
_IN, the UN represents recommendation unallocated to the acronyms in Table 1, NaN – not a number, NA – not available.

recommendations (Tables 5 and 6). This brings us to the conclusion that participation in a scientific research network oriented toward studying a
human resources, per se, are insufficient to gain a competitive advantage. phenomenon, is seen as essential for gaining a competitive advantage
Even more surprising are the results regarding organisational re­ (Collins, 2021). Our results indicate a negative association between
sources. Possession of organisational resources, understood as ownership of organisational resources (network participation) and

8
J. Michalak et al. Journal of Cleaner Production 412 (2023) 137186

Table 5
Two-side Wels to sample t-test on mean differences between translated and untranslated policy recommendations into CSRD.
Mean Translated Mean Untranslated difference df t p-value

Human Resources (No of Authors) 2.6286 2.8485 − 0.2199 61.5382 − 0.7782 0.4395
Organisational Resources (Participation in Network) 0.0857 0.4242 − 0.3385 49.9562 − 3.3958 0.0013
Financial Resources (grant) 0.2571 0.0909 0.1662 59.1607 1.8356 0.0714
Control variable 1 (Source: WoS) 0.6286 0.4242 0.2043 65.5463 1.6969 0.0945
Control Variable 2 3.6 3.1818 0.4182 63.4917 0.7871 0.4341
Nature of the Paper

Bolded significant <10%.

Table 6 5.2. Limitations

Both side Wilcoxon rank sum test with continuity correction on translated and
untranslated policy implementations. The study shares the assumption that external condition remained
W p-value stable during the policy implementation period. It applies the testing of
Human Resources (No of Authors) 514 0.423
the correlation coefficients and differences between the implemented
Organisational Resources (Participation in Network) 382 0.001 and not implemented recommendations. The approach assumes other
Financial Resources (grant) 673.5 0.076 external conditions are unchanged. Our instruments might covariate,
Control variable 1(Source: WoS) 695.5 0.095 moderate and interfere with other factors, but the available sample size
Control Variable 2 628 0.532
restricts the more sophisticated modelling. Thus our findings are
Nature of the Paper
tentative.
Bolded significant <10%. The researchers acknowledge that the results are based on a rela­
tively small population of papers. The subjective character of the manual
translation of results. Our results differ from those of Eisend and Schmidt
binary content analysis using a coding framework could be considered a
(2014) and Van Rijnsoever et al. (2008), who found that participation in
limitation. We decided to use a straightforward measure of human
research networks is crucial for academic research performance.
capital – number of papers’ authors, which can be perceived as limita­
Possible explanations include the difficulty of reaching a consensus on
tion of our study. Other human resources variables are used in prior
recommendations in a more extensive research team (network).
literature (Van Rijnsoever et al. (2008); Ryu and Choi 2016) however,
Our study confirmed that access to financial resources is linked with
our paper focuses on the joint author effort. Since the study is centred on
the translation of research into a CRSD Proposal. These results are in line
specific key terms, the enlargement of the potential key terms might
with those of Ryu and Choi (2016), who confirmed that access to
result in the rise of the number of papers in the tested population but at
financial resources (grants) is the primary determinant of academic
the expense of the specificity of the implications. Thus, this paper offers
outputs (in our case - the translation of recommendations into the CRSD
a balance between subjectiveness, focus and feasibility. However, our
proposal). In our opinion, the following explanations of the link between
robustness tests do not indicate a substantial risk of it. The alternative
financial resources (obtaining a grant) and the translation of recom­
cross-test for the research gap would be to apply the citation count
mendations are plausible. Firstly, in some grant application procedures,
regression (Staszkiewicz, 2019), but this approach is unfeasible due to
a requirement for obtaining and accepting the funds is to indicate the
the lack of studies directly linked to the NFRD/CSRD intersection.
theocratic and practical (policy) implications of the research carried out
under the grant. Secondly, obtaining financial resources may be linked
6. Conclusions and future perspective of the research
to having other resources, such as information or reputation resources,
which may translate into gaining a competitive advantage.
The rationale of this study is based on the concept that academics are
This paper builds upon the synthesis of the formulation of the
willing to influence policymaking.
research recommendation across different authors and sources. We
The study documents that the substantial research contribution of
argue that both the research community and practitioners need to
studies fails to formulate direct policy recommendations. Out of the
develop a more consistent communication protocol; the lack of policy
body of formulated recommendations, just a fraction is coined into
implication in research output jeopardises research accountability to
formal legislation; the language of the policy recommendations is often
society, while the lack of its utilisation from policy setters constitutes
general and indirect.
reverse discouraging feedback. Moreover, funding resources (grants)
Our findings based on RBT imply for the policymakers that the
play an essential role in translating results into policymaking inclusion.
mechanism of the academics’ incentives needs rethinking since the
We contend that the more substantial inclusion of social impact
search for scientific contribution dominates policy recommendations.
(together with policy recommendations) into the grants assignment
Moreover, both sides need a more transparent and precise formulation
procedures increases the chances of success of academic recommenda­
of impact requests and policy advice to closely align the policy and ac­
tions development and their further translation into new policies.
ademics. Other factors, beyond RBT, might influence the implementa­
To sum up, our results holistically provide the lack of evidence on the
tion of scientific recommendations into enacting, the search for those
rejection of both hypotheses, namely: NFRD literature recommendations
factors we isolate for further studies.
impact the CSRD provisions and that policy recommendations of re­
Often the policy deals with incremental correction, which falls out of
searchers that possess scarce resources are incorporated into the CRSD.
the scope of the research community interest. Our study indicates that
The results indicate that the majority of scientists do not provide direct
the threshold of importance is not necessarily explicitly formulated. Our
policy recommendations, and for those who provide, a significant part of
findings suggest that scientists’ participation on boards, committees,
the scientific effort is lost. In addition, the portfolio of potential re­
consultative groups or expert panels and submitting responses to
sources does not necessarily affect the bill formation in line with the RBT
consultative documents could be a predominated channel for the policy
at the hard impact. This, in turn, brings us to the further study avenue,
translation into the legal provision. Thus, a closer look at this phe­
namely, the magnitude of the soft impact stays an unexplored context of
nomenon opens future research avenues.
the CSRD/NFRD discussion.

9
J. Michalak et al. Journal of Cleaner Production 412 (2023) 137186

CRediT authorship contribution statement Declaration of competing interest

Jan Michalak: Conceptualization, Investigation, Validation, Writing
– original draft. Piotr Staszkiewicz: Conceptualization, Methodology,
Investigation, Software, Visualization, Writing – review & editing.
Halina Waniak-Michalak: Data curation, Investigation, Writing –
original draft, Project administration, Validation.
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
the work reported in this paper.
Data availability

Data will be made available on request.

Appendix A

Step 8: Robustness

We cross-checked our findings in three dimensions, whether the EC relates directly to the NFRD literature at CRSD proposal formulation, how our
results are affected by the double inclusion of documents in databases, and how the source quality impacts the result.

1 Corpus completes
In the early stages, the corporate reporting practice led to an abundance of labels of nonfinancial reporting like Corporate Citizenship Report,
Corporate (Social) Responsibility Report, Sustainable Development Report, Sustainable Value Report, Sustainability Report, and so on (Hahn and
Kühnen, 2013). Thus, we allowed for variation in labelling relating to CRSD/NFRD keywords extending the potential keywords to “CRS”, “Sus­
tainable” and others. It resulted in a different sized initial corpus but manual review of the scope of the papers indicated a weak or no relevance to
CRSD/NFRD amendments, thus our preliminary corpus identification stays substantially unchanged.

2 Evaluation of the academics’ role in CRSD proposal development

To evaluate the role of the academic in CRSD proposal development, we analysed EC documents concerning the CRSD proposal development
process. In the process, EC mainly took into consideration the recommendations of the task force established by EFRAG. Academic members of the
EFRAG task force were D. Gibassier (Audencia Business School) and B. Ginner (University of Valencia).
EC also contracted two consulting companies: CEPS and the SustainAbility Institute (part of ERM - Environmental Resources Management).
CEPS (2020) prepared and published in November 2020 the study on the Nonfinancial Reporting Directive. The SustainAbility Institute (ERM, 2020)
developed and released in November a study on Sustainability-Related Ratings, Data and Research. Finally, EFRAG (2021a) prepared and published in
February 2021 Proposals For A Relevant And Dynamic EU Sustainability Reporting Standard accompanied by six appendices.
Academics influenced all three reports, however, in different ways. The Study on the Nonfinancial Reporting Directive does not cite any previous
academic research. The study is a research paper that analysed data on more than 17 million companies, gathered survey responses from more than
200 companies, and conducted interviews with over 60 stakeholders. Two academics J. Gláserová and M. Otavová (both from Mendel University),
provided input to the report. The study on Sustainability-Related Ratings, Data and Research, cites articles (outside our sample) published in academic
journals as well as papers deposited in SSRN and universities depositaries.
EFRAG’s Proposals For A Relevant And Dynamic EU Sustainability Reporting Standard cites a relatively small number of scientific papers (mainly in
Appendix 4 (EFRAG, 2021b)). It also refers to an academic research paper commissioned by EFRAG and prepared by Zambon et al. (2020). Moreover,
academics participated in the consultations conducted by EFRAG.
The participation of academics in developing the CRSD proposal was direct and indirect, while EC applies the intermediate bodies for direct policy
advice. Thus, the evidence supports our impact gap at the level of the literature body.

3 Merging the Scopus and WoS results without duplicates

The potential sources of disturbance for separate analysis of the data from the WoS and Scopus is that they share a common fraction of 33 doc­
uments replicated in both databases. We eliminated the replication and recomputed the significance tests for the integrated data without double-ups.
Table A1 presents the results.

Table A1
The average number of the policy implications by papers and tags - WoS and Scopus without recurring entries

WoS and Scopus

SC AS DS ST DI ALL UA

Average number of implications by paper 0.0279 0.0489 0.0139 0.0419 0.0069 0.1398 0.2027
t-statistics 2.0215 2.7035 1.4192 2.4938 1 3.1049 6.0102
p-value 0.04511 0.0077 0.158 0.01379 0.319 0.002298 0.0000
Null hypothesis R R A R A R R
SC_IN AS_IN DS_IN ST_IN DI_IN ALL_IN UA_IN
Average number of implications by paper 0.0279 0.0419 0 0.0769 0 0.4475 0.14685
t-statistics 2.0215 2.4938 NaN 3.44 NaN 8.5718 4.9439
p-value 0.04511 0.01379 NA 0.0007 NA 0.0000 0.0000
Null hypothesis R R A R A R R
A – no evidence for rejection, R – null hypotheses (true mean is equal to 0) rejected. Column’s acronyms AC to DI in line with Table 1, prefix _IN denotes the indirect,
while All represents the sum of the recommendation for dimension AC to DI; the All_IN represent sums of the recommendation for all dimensions with prefix _IN, NaN –
not a number, NA – not available.
Our robust results are in line with those presented in Table 4.

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J. Michalak et al. Journal of Cleaner Production 412 (2023) 137186

5 Merging the Scopus and WoS results from high tier journals
Another source of potential disturbance is the journal’s credibility. We selected from the combined dataset documents included in the 67th edition
of Journal Quality List by Anne-Wil Harzing and rerun the significance test. Table A2 presents the results.

Table A2
The average number of the policy implications by papers and tags - WoS and Scopus for sources included in the Journal Quality List

WoS and Scopus

SC AS DS ST DI ALL UA

The average number of implications by paper 0.0322 0.0967 0 0 0 0.1290 0.2580

t-statistics 1 1.7928 NaN NaN NaN 2.1082 3.2303
p-value 0.3253 0.08309 NA NA NA 0.04348 0.0029
Null hypothesis A R A A A R R
SC_IN AS_IN DS_IN ST_IN DI_IN ALL_IN UA_IN
Average number of implications by paper 0.0322 0 0 0.0645 0 0.1290 0.1290
t-statistics 1 NaN NaN 1.4384 NaN 2.1082 2.1082
p-value 0.3253 NA NA 0.1607 NA 0.04348 0.04348
Null hypothesis A A A A A R R
A – no evidence for rejection, R – null hypotheses (true mean is equal to 0) rejected. Column’s acronyms AC to DI in line with Table 1, prefix _IN denotes the indirect,
while All represents the sum of the recommendation for dimension AC to DI; the All_IN represent sums of the recommendation for all dimensions with prefix _IN, NaN –
not a number, NA – not available.
The tests confirm the significance of the allocated (both direct and indirect) and unallocated recommendations.7 Considering all robustness tests,
we did not find evidence to contradict the stability of results shown in Table 4 other than those reflected in the study limitations.

Appendix B. Supplementary data

Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2023.137186.

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