Integrating CSR into the governing structure of Spanish companies: Between corporate strategy and story-telling

This study looks at the integration of CSR strategies into the governing structures of Spanish companies. Specifically, I shall be looking at how this integration appears from sustainability reports (GRI) of the Ibex 35 companies. The research shows that companies uniformly state that the board of directors is directly responsible for the company's CSR measures but that when more specific questions are asked regarding the particular ways in which the board supervises CSR, such conformity vanishes, and answers often become elusive. This result, together with similar findings on directors' compensation, suggests the positive effect that the code of corporate governance has on CSR. Furthermore, the study finds that Spanish companies are leading the field in GRI reporting and filing, a fact which has no obvious explanation.