The issue of gender inequalities in the non-financial statements. An empirical analysis

Scholars and practitioners have extensively argued the issue of gender inequalities and the contribution of women in companies. Contrariwise, there are few contributions on the topic of how relevant is the information on gender issues, particularly regarding women’s perspectives. This research is grounded on the theoretical framework of the legitimacy theory to analyse the extent of the information disclosed by Italian public companies about women and gender issues before and after European Directive 2014/95 is transposed into the national legislation. Notably, we aim to verify if the companies adopted a substantive or a symbolic approach in disclosing the information connected with gender issues. A qualitative research methodology based on multiple case studies was used to comply with the paper’s aim. The authors conducted a content analysis on the non-financial statement—or similar documents—produced by Italian non-financial companies listed on the FTSE-MIB before and after the first application in Italy of the national legislation implementing the European Directive. The 20 industrial listed companies form the sample and a scoring model based on key disclosure parameters is used in the research. The findings detect that there is a growing interest in the topic. Thus, the directive impact on the quality and quantity of information businesses produce is mainly positive. However, Italian listed companies have adopted a symbolic approach to gender disclosure at first. Later, they seem to have developed a more substantial approach. Nevertheless, no empirical evidence was found regarding specific information on the effect that COVID-19 has had on female work in the undertakings. This study fills a gap in the existing literature and can impact the behaviour followed by companies. The significance of the results is proved because even today, the disclosure of gender issues is considered of primary importance since only a relatively small number of companies are required to analyse gender issues and give relevance to the topic. The study’s conclusions propose insights to policymakers to measure the effectiveness of the rules on non-financial disclosure and can contribute to the current consideration about updating the mentioned directive by the EU and European and international accounting bodies.