The Accounting and Reporting of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion by Nonprofit Organizations

• In Event: Accountability and Evidence Based Practice: Critical Perspectives

Abstract

This paper investigates the state of the art in the literature on the topic of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) reported by nonprofit organizations. Several research studies analyze DEI issues in business companies as part of non-financial reporting information, but less studied are the same issues related to nonprofit organizations. Therefore, we aim to fill this gap starting from debates already developed in the literature, especially in management, accounting, and social science studies. We investigate the prevalence of the intersection of DEI and nonprofit accounting/reporting in the literature, and the principal authors, countries, journals, and keywords in the combined field of research.

In our study, we used the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) using the Scopus and Web of Science databases. To focus our analysis, we considered only articles, book chapters, reviews, and conference papers published in English in the business, accounting, management, and social science subject areas. Most of the selected documents are published in English-speaking countries (USA, Australia, UK, Canada, India, etc.), followed by several EU countries (Italy, Germany, France, Netherlands, etc.) in high-ranked journals such as Voluntas, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, Sustainability, Journal of Business Ethics, Voluntary Sector Review, and Health Care Management Review. We find that diversity, equity, and inclusion reporting in nonprofits is linked to research topics such as corporate governance and board diversity, accountability, impact assessment, performance measurement, and funder requirements. This preliminary analysis could help researchers interested in DIE in Nonprofits to focus on the principal research gaps identified in the literature.
Further empirical analysis on primary data - e.g. evidence from annual reports and social (or sustainability) reports and secondary data - e.g. statistical data or data retrieved from public databases (Guidestar, etc.), will be conducted for analysis of the issue in different contexts

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Authors

• Laura Berardi, G. d'Annunzio University of Chieti-Pescara

• Laurie Mook, ASU-Lodestar Center for Philanthropy and Nonprofit