A descriptive framework for an excellent social accountability

Despite the creation of several guidelines for social accountability, there is not a model able to describe how a social accountability document should be. This paper aims at proposing a framework of characteristics for excellent social reports, useful for those organisations that choose the path of social accountability. After a review of literature on the typologies and features of this kind of accountability, the paper analyses the Italian social accountability awarded in the period 2012-2015. Research findings show how the benchmark documents are all characterised by high standards of communication while a more diversified scenario can be emphasised for the standards of content. Despite this paper is only an explorative study, it could represent a good guideline towards excellence in social reporting and could provide suggestions for their development.