Materiality Analyses: Evolution and Importance

Firms deal with a range of issues that they report in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) reports. However, not all issues are relatively important to correctively reflect environmental, social and economic impacts and influence stakeholder’s decisions. In addition, there is variability in reporting practices. At this point, corporate materiality analyses come to the rescue for the firms and aid them in prioritizing and reporting the most important issues. Materiality analyses have gained increased popularity and adoption by firms globally. GRI (Global Reporting Initiative) rates materiality as the most important criteria while publishing CSR reports. The current study\u27s objective was to understand how materiality analyses have evolved. With the evolution, are there any trends that could be observed? For the study, 14 firms were chosen belonging to different sectors. The firms used were Firms of Endearment. Fortune 100 and two of the big four consulting firms. The study was carried by using two-order scheme for coding data by using Gioia methodology into different categories in NVIVO (software for qualitative research). Categories were created, and frequency of the each of the categories were computed. Percentage values were calculated using the frequency of each of the categories. There were positive and contradicting trends that were observed in the evolution of materiality analyses for current research. The findings from the current research give a new perspective to look at materiality and pave the way for more investigation in this area