The development of the social audit concept in Romania

Abstract

The paper mainly approaches the social audit, an insufficiently developed field in our country. The social audit concept is defined in Romania by the Social Assistance Law no. 292/2011 and its application is limited to this scope. At international level, the concept has a much wider application area. The research methodology is a qualitative one. The objectives of the paper consist in the theoretical development of the social audit concept: the definition of the social audit, the description of the stages and the goals of this process, the identification of the connections between sustainable development, corporate social responsibility and social audit, the performance of a comparative analysis between the social audit, the financial audit and the internal audit, the explanation of the advantages of applying the social audit in the business environment, in social institutions and in the public administration, the illustration of qualitative and quantitative indicators that can be employed in social audit engagements, as well as the proposal of an application model of the social audit in Romania.

Full text

The development of the social audit concept in Romania
No. 10(142)/2016
1101
Audit financiar, XIV, Nr. 10(142)/2016, 1101-1113
ISSN: 1583-5812; ISSN on-line: 1844-8801
The
development
of the social
audit concept
in Romania
Ioana Iuliana GRIGORESCU,
School Inspectorate of the Cluj County,
E-mail: ioanaiuliana69@yahoo.es
Camelia Daniela HAŢEGAN,
West University of Timişoara,
E-mail: camelia.hategan@e-uvt.ro
.
Abstract
The paper mainly approaches the social audit, an
insufficiently developed field in our country. The social
audit concept is defined in Romania by the Social
Assistance Law no. 292/2011 and its application is
limited to this scope. At international level, the concept
has a much wider application area.
The research methodology is a qualitative one. The
objectives of the paper consist in the theoretical
development of the social audit concept: the definition of
the social audit, the description of the stages and the
goals of this process, the identification of the
connections between sustainable development,
corporate social responsibility and social audit, the
performance of a comparative analysis between the
social audit, the financial audit and the internal audit, the
explanation of the advantages of applying the social
audit in the business environment, in social institutions
and in the public administration, the illustration of
qualitative and quantitative indicators that can be
employed in social audit engagements, as well as the
proposal of an application model of the social audit in
Romania.
Keywords: Social audit, corporate social responsibility,
sustainable development, financial audit, social
indicators
JEL Classification: M14, M42
To cite this article:
Grigorescu, I.I., Haţegan, C.D. (2016), The development of the
social audit concept in Romania, Audit Financiar, vol. XIV, no.
10(142)/2016, pp. 1101-1113, DOI:
10.20869/AUDITF/2016/142/1101
To link to this article:
http://dx.doi.org/10.20869/AUDITF/2016/142/1101

Ioana Iuliana GRIGORESCU, Camelia Daniela HAŢEGAN
AUDIT FINANCIAR, year XIV
1102
Introduction
Emerging democracies face significant difficulties in the
economic and social field, as well as in the field of the
democratic administration. In the private environment,
we can say that the capitalist society understands the
economy in terms of economic return and is based on
values which not always respect the ethics, or the
environment, while it is not always aware of the social
responsibility.
In the public environment, though political leaders have
been elected by means of democratic methods, the
implemented social policies often don’t entirely represent
the needs and expectations of the citizens, while civil
servants don’t efficiently manage public funds, or are not
sufficiently transparent and responsible in front of the
citizens they serve. We can say that the “culture of
transparency” between public and social employees is
lacking.
In the last years, however, in Europe and all over the
world, more and more companies are willing to take
social responsibility, by honest practices, a transparent
management and an environmental friendly
development.
In the same line, the citizens are more and more
demanding in respect of their right to be informed and
have an influence on the decision-making. The number
of “ideological customers” is increasing every day. All
these lead to the need of a methodology to examine
the coherence between the actions of the companies
and public institutions and the values of the social
economy.
The term “audit” refers to several types of audit,
including social audit. The social audit is an instrument
that supports distinct entities to evaluate their corporate
social sustainability actions, in order to observe the
extent to which they managed to reach their social
goals. It can be applied both in the public and in the
private environment.
Our research started from the fact that the social audit
concept is almost unknown and not used in Romania.
The objectives of the present paper are to describe and
develop the social audit concept in Romania, to clarify
and raise the awareness of the role of the social audit in
the current social and economic context, to bring
arguments in favour of the idea that the use of the social
audit has positive effects on the economic and social
environment, as well as to describe the performance of a
social audit and propose an application model in
Romania.
A developed society is assessed based on the nature
and the quality of the social services provided to its
citizens. Hence, an increased transparency is necessary
in all fields of both the public and the private economic
and social life.
1. The origin of the social audit
concept
The term “audit” appeared in England, in the late 13th
century, in relation with the financial and accounting
field. In the 20th century, the activity of the auditors from
the United States of America expanded to the social
area. In this line, Howard Bowen published the book
“Social responsibility of businessman”, where he stated
that business men are responsible in front of the society
and they must follow strategies in connection with social
objectives (Idowu, 2015).
In Europe, the social audit concept was first used in
the 50s, through the radical ideas of George Goyder,
who in 1961 published the book “The responsibility
company”. Later, in 1973, John Humble released the
work “Social responsibility audit: A management tool
for survival”.
The social audit becomes popular in Europe. In England,
the association Social Audit Limited publishes its results
in the journal “Social Audit Quarterly”, while in France
the Social Expertise and Audit Society is founded, who
contributed to the establishment of the International
Institute of Social Audit.
2. The definition of the social audit
in literature
In order to assess the companies’ and stakeholders’
possible interest in the social audit, we need to perform
several conceptual clarifications of the terminology used
in the specific international literature, where we find a
high number of terms like: social responsibility
accounting, corporate social reporting, social audit,
ethical statement, values report, social statement, social
account, ethical audit, memoria sobre desarollo
sostenible, balance societal, auditoría social, audit social
(Morros and Vidal, 2005; Mugarra, 2004).

The development of the social audit concept in Romania
No. 10(142)/2016
1103
In the literature of the 80s-90s, we find different authors
concerned with the social audit, authors who defined
and differentiated the social audit from other audit types.
In this line, Vatier (1980) defined social audit as a
“management and administration instrument, as well as
an observation attempt that, unlike the financial or
accounting audit tends, in its area, to assess the ability
of an organization to manage human or social issues
generated by its environment, as well as raised by itself
by using the necessary personnel in performing its
activity”.
Spreckley (1981) notes that “the social audit is a concept
related to social enterprises and represents an evidence
of their social character”.
Candau (1985) considers it “an independent and
inductive objective undertaking of observation, analyse,
evaluation and recommendation, which is based on a
methodology and uses techniques that allow, in relation
with different explicit references, the identification, in a
first stage, of the strengths, the problems generated by
employing the personnel, as well as of the constraints, in
form of costs and risks”.
Zadek and Raynard (1995) consider that the social audit
represents, in a more complete form “a process that
allows an organization to evaluate its social efficiency
and ethical behaviour in relation with its objectives, so
that it can improve its social and solidarity results and
account for them in front of the stakeholders.”
The preoccupations in the field of the social audit
continued after 2000, attracting the attention of the
European institutions. In this line, the European
Commission (2001) defines the social audit, in its Green
Paper, as a the systematic evaluation of an
organisation’s social impact in relation to standards and
expectations;
Roqueñi and Retolaza (2005) specify that the meaning
of the social audit can differ between the countries. For
instance:
- The social report or “balance societal”, used in
France, refers to “all the initiatives that, in a direct
and systematic form, with criteria established in time,
seek to describe the operating manner of the firm in
the social environment”, while
- The memorandum on sustainable development, i.e.
“memoria sobre el desarollo sostenible”, used in
Spain, refers to “information provided voluntarily by
an entity, in order to inform about its social actions;
- The term social audit or “auditoría social”, also used
in Spain, means “the external verification of the
information provided within the social report, based
on a previous regulated process”.
Igalens and Peretti (2008) perceived the social audit as
a form of observation, or a logical reasoning and defined
it more thoroughly, i.e.: “a form of observation that aims
to test the principles, policies, processes and results
associated to the relations between the organization and
its partners, if: it actually accomplished what it stated; it
used its means in the best possible way; it preserved its
autonomy and wealth; it is able to accomplish what it
intends to accomplish; it observed the rules; it knows
how to assess its risks”.
In Romania, Şchiopoiu Burlea (2008) defines the social
audit in the book “Social audit from theory to practice” as
“a complex, objective, independent and inductive
process, through which the social reality from an
organization is observed, analysed and evaluated based
on its efficiency and performance criteria, as well as
according to the internal and external regulations in
force, for the purpose of amending its weaknesses and
removing the social risk factors”.
Chivu (2006) briefly describes the performance of a
social audit and provides examples of reference
indicators used in human resources management.
Our qualitative research showed that the Romanian
literature is not abundant in papers on the topic of the
social audit.
Within Romanian regulations, the term “social audit” is
referred to in 2011, within the Social Assistance Law no.
292/2011. Paragraphs 1-4 of art. 142 prescribe that:
“Private suppliers of social services, contracting
authorities, as well as other natural or legal persons who
finance social services, may require the independent
evaluation of the funding agreements for the provision of
social services, by means of social audit procedures.
The social audit is performed by the social auditor and
considers mainly:
a. The examination of the plans and procedures
defined by the suppliers of social services for the
funded services;
b. The evaluation of the efficiency and effectiveness of
the contracted social services;
c. The examination of the accuracy of the employed
information;
d. The recommendation of operational improvements.”

Ioana Iuliana GRIGORESCU, Camelia Daniela HAŢEGAN
AUDIT FINANCIAR, year XIV
1104
The definition of the social audit, proposed in Romania
by Law no. 292/2011 doesn’t include all the social
responsibility issues, considered in the international
literature, but regards merely funding agreements for the
provision of social services by private suppliers; yet, the
social audit is a general instrument of the social
responsibility, a management tool, and can be employed
by any type of public or private organization.
We accept the idea that social entities must be the first
ones to adopt or employ the social audit in their internal
management, due to the fact that they are based on
social objectives and one of their preoccupations should
consist in the continuous improvement of these
objectives. But the social audit supports any type of
organization to measure its social results, in five different
areas (Spreckley, 1981): profit contribution, human
resource contribution, public contribution, environmental
contribution and product/service contribution.
Figure 1 summarizes the point of view of different
authors, who attempted to define the social audit
concept:
Figure 1. What is the social audit?
Source: Authors’ own processing, 2016
After analysing these definitions, the social audit is, in
our opinion, a continuous evaluation process, that can
be integrated in the regular activity cycle of a company –
planning, evaluation, reporting – and can be considered
an essential condition in the achievement of the entities’
and organizations’ progress and concessions with the
society they belong to.
3. The research methodology
The research methodology is a qualitative one. We
performed a review of the Romanian and foreign
literature – textbooks, books, papers and specific
regulations in force. We accessed relevant websites
and electronic databases, like the ones of the
European Commission and of certain public and
social institutions from Romania and from abroad.
Based on the collected data, we described the
evolution of the social audit at international level, as
well as a description of the current state of the art in
Romania. More, we shall explain the implications of
the social audit in a private institution or company, in
order to prove that its use has positive effects on the
economic and social environment.

The development of the social audit concept in Romania
No. 10(142)/2016
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4. The role of the social audit – the
relationship between
sustainable development,
corporate social responsibility
and social audit
The question to be asked is the following: Why should
companies and stakeholders be interested in the
application of the social audit?
Currently, a frequently debated topic is that of the
sustainable development, which implies the solving of
global issues of the social and economic life and can be
realized only through the active involvement of all
companies. The pillars of sustainable development are
the economic, social and environmental development
(Anghel, 2009).
In Romania, social responsibility reports are not a
priority (Bunea, 2013). National companies initiated the
adoption of social responsibility policies when they
aimed to be listed on the Bucharest Stock Exchange,
given the covenants of its Corporate Governance Code.
More, the prepared reports don’t really describe social
responsibility strategies, the application results of such
strategies or, least of all, corresponding improvement
measures.
The term “corporate social responsibility” has been used
in Europe since the early 21st century and its importance
has increased in time. In 2011 the European
Commission issued a new definition of the corporate
social responsibility, according to which CSR means “the
responsibility of enterprises for their impact on society”.
Hence, a new approach emerges, implying the voluntary
integration of the enterprises’ social and environmental
concerns in their trading activities, as well as in their
relationships with the stakeholders, thus contributing to
the conciliation of the economic, social and
environmental responsibilities in the cooperation with
their partners.
The corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities
of the companies must comply with their sustainable
development policy. And this is the point in which the
social audit starts playing its role. The social audit
tests the coherence between the corporate social
responsibility activities and the sustainable
development policies of the company, aiming at the
improvement of its social and environmental
performance. This leads us to the necessity of the
social audit.
The evaluation and continuous improvement process of
the sustainable development policies, as well as of the
corporate social responsibility actions of the companies
should be performed as briefly illustrated in Figure 2.
Figure 2. The relationship between sustainable development, corporate social responsibility and social audit
Source: Authors’ own processing, 2016

Ioana Iuliana GRIGORESCU, Camelia Daniela HAŢEGAN
AUDIT FINANCIAR, year XIV
1106
For a better understanding of the role played by the
social audit, we shall provide several examples of
sustainable development policies and corporate
social responsibility actions:
a. Sustainable development policies:
- In the economic area: declining poverty,
providing access to utilities, funding the
infrastructure;
- In the social area: supporting families with
more than one child, assuring labour
security, supporting people with disabilities;
- In the cultural area: access to education,
quality of information;
- In the financial area: pension covering,
business ethics;
- In health: access to medicine, whose costs
are partly covered from public funds,
eradication of diseases;
- Ethics: respecting human rights, fight
against the corruption, proficient governing.
b. Corporate social responsibility actions:
- The involvement of all organizations in
activities associated with the economic and
social development of the society;
- Investments oriented to the welfare of the
community;
- Transparent business, transparent actions;
- The non-acceptance, as partners or
collaborators, of firms supporting the
production of arms;
- Policies of employee promotion and
training;
- Ethical business;
- Social programs for diabetics, orphans,
drug-addicted persons;
- The granting of scholarships for
underprivileged pupils;
- Supporting the environment-related
research etc.
As a conclusion, the role of the social audit is to:
- Evaluate the sustainable development
objectives that have been set;
- Examine if the corporate social
responsibility actions that have been set are
correlated with the sustainable development
policy of the entity;
- To evaluate the performance of the
company;
- To examine the information provided by the
entity’s Social responsibility report;
- To detect possible shortcomings;
- To provide recommendations related to the
detected shortcomings, so that the attitude
of the organization in the economic, social
and environmental field is continuously
improving.
5. Comparative analysis between
the social audit, the financial
audit and the internal audit
The annual reports of the organizations provide
mainly financial information. It has been considered
lately that non-financial information is also
required, in order to deliver a more complete
information and to raise the confidence of the users
in the provided reports. Hence, at European level,
the Directive 2014/95/UE was approved, which
commits public interest companies with over 500
employees to publish a non-financial statement,
comprising “information regarding at least
environmental matters, social and employee
aspects, respect for human rights, as well as
anticorruption and bribery issues”. Financial
information is thus the object of the financial audit,
while non-financial information is the object of other
types of audit, like the social audit. The internal
evaluation of the organization’s activity is
performed by the internal audit.
As a consequence, we shall analyse the similarities
and dissimilarities between the social and the
financial audit, identified and summarized in the
following table:

The development of the social audit concept in Romania
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Table 1. Features of the social, financial and informal audit
Feature
Social audit
Financial audit
Internal audit
Responsible international
body
Social Accountability
International (SAI)
International Federation of
Accountants (IFAC)
The Global Institute of
Internal Auditors (IIA Global)
International standardization
SAI SA8000 Standards Social
Accountability
International Standards on
Auditing (ISA)
Internal standards on internal
auditing
International standardization
implemented in Romania
No distinct professional body
identified*
ISA endorsed by the
Chamber of Financial
Auditors of Romania (CAFR)
Standards endorsed by the
CAFR, in collaboration with
the Association of Internal
Auditors
Objective
The evaluation of the social
performance of an
organization’s activity
Expressing an opinion
regarding an organization’s
financial statements
Evaluating the governance,
risk management and internal
control processes
Users
Stakeholders
Stakeholders
Management
Independence
Compulsory requirement
Compulsory requirement
Compulsory requirement
Audited period
Set based on an annual plan
Usually, the financial year
Set based on an annual plan
Periodicity
Annual or shorter periods
Annual
Annual
Compulsoriness
Voluntary
Prescribed by law and
voluntary
Prescribed by law and
voluntary
Completion
Report with findings and
recommendations
Report expressing an opinion
Report with findings and
recommendations
* Several organizations provide in Romania SA8000 evaluation services, among which the Romanian Society for Quality Assurance
issued most certificates, within the certification scheme SA8000 of IQNet Ltd
http://www.saasaccreditation.org/sites/default/files/u4/CB_By_Country_Q1_2015.pdf
Source: Authors’ own processing, 2016
In the last years, in Romania, concerns for studying the
social audit activity were shown by the Institute of Social
Economy, which is a program of the Foundation for the
Development of the Civil Society, initiated and
developed within the project “PROMETEUS – Promoting
the social economy in Romania through research,
education and training at European standards”, co-
financed from the European Social Fund, through the
Sectoral Operational Program Human Resources
Development 2007-20131.
The table above shows that no professional body has
been established in Romania, meant to manage the
social audit activity; the international association SAI
accredited however several certification organizations
from Romania; hence we may conclude that a national
professional body could be founded in the near future.
Based on the information presented, we consider that all
the specified audit types are necessary, so that they
contribute to the certification of a more complete image
of the outcomes of the organization’s activity, in order to
1 http://www.ies.org.ro/ies-1
raise the confidence of the users in the reporting. More,
the auditors of the information could collaborate and rely
on each other’s activity.
We shall further on detail the social audit process and
the identification methodology of the social audit
indicators, with the latter’s illustration.
6. The social audit process
The social audit is a method or an instrument of the
company’s internal management. It is assumed that no
company will counterfeit its own self-assessment
process, but if the company claims that a publicly
available social audit report should be issued, in order to
raise its credibility, the report should be certified by an
external independent person.
Depending on the purpose of the social audit and on its
objectives, the audit can be performed by an internal
auditor, an external auditor or an audit team, established
within the company and proportionally representing all
the stakeholders.

Ioana Iuliana GRIGORESCU, Camelia Daniela HAŢEGAN
AUDIT FINANCIAR, year XIV
1108
According to Şchiopoiu Burlea (2008), the stages of a
social audit engagement are the following:
- The pre-diagnosis stage, which includes: The
description of the (internal or external) social
audit engagement;
- The localization and understanding of the entity
– especially by the external auditor;
- The detection of the entity’s real problems;
- The drafting of a Working plan;
- The information collection and control stage;
- The information analysis stage;
- The information testing and validation stage,
within which the audit report is also prepared;
- The recommendation stage.
We can notice that the above identified stages generally
resemble the other audit engagements previously
compared; it is incidental that audit engagements have
the same general rules, just a different content of their
activity.
The figure below summarizes the social audit process:
Figure 3. The social audit process
Source: Authors’ own processing, 2016
The necessary elements of a social audit of good quality
can be:
- Sufficient motivation on the part of the company;
- Consensus and a direct participation of all the
stakeholders;
- A correct information with regard to the objectives of
the social audit;
- The existence of an audit team from inside the
company, which covers proportionately all the
interested groups;
- The determination of adequate indicators for the
objectives under evaluation;
- The involvement of external participants, with the
ability to monitor the audit process, in order to

The development of the social audit concept in Romania
No. 10(142)/2016
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provide consultancy if needed and in order to certify
the validity of the methods and instruments
employed, as well as the representativeness of the
participating parties.
The social audit is a process that requires a preset time
– like a year or several months – depending on its
objectives and indicators. It is a process that must follow
several logical procedures, starting with the the initiative
of performing a social audit – proposal, approval,
organization of the process – up to its real execution.
If the social audit is performed by the group
comprising the different persons or groups, who are
either involved in or affected by the activity of the
entity, the responsible team will execute the planning
and coordination, as well as determine the calendar
and the indicators of the social audit, while the rest of
the actors:
- Will respond to the determined indicators,
individually or in groups;
- Will participate in the meetings at which the
indicators will be interpreted;
- Will suggest improvement measures, based on
the outcomes of the audit.
The social audit organization stages could be the
following:
Figure 4. The social audit organization stages
Source: Authors’ own processing, 2016

Ioana Iuliana GRIGORESCU, Camelia Daniela HAŢEGAN
AUDIT FINANCIAR, year XIV
1110
7. The social audit indicators
Most companies don’t start from scratch but have own
methods, based on which they gather information or
opinions, or reflect on elements with no pure economic
content, but these methods are fragmented and poorly
structured.
The social audit relies on what already exists and builds
on it until an integrated and logical structured is
achieved. Most organisations are surprised to discover
that they had been performing many social audit
elements, however without completing them.
We suggest following the following methodology of
identifying social audit indicators:
Figure 5. Indicator identification methodology
Source: Authors’ own processing, 2016
The social indicators are meant to synthesize the
information collected during the social audit
engagements and extract the core of the phenomena.
Therefore the social auditor, based on the own judgment
and logic, needs to choose those indicators whose
evolution can be followed for a time “for using them as
efficient instruments of the social policy” (Şchiopoiu
Burlea, 2008).
We shall further present several concrete examples of
questions or indicators identified in literature, which can
support any type of organization to test if its activities
reflect the ideals and values it promotes.

The development of the social audit concept in Romania
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Figure 6. Examples of indicators
TYPES OF ORGANIZATIONS THAT
CAN APPLY THE SOCIAL AUDIT
EXAMPLES OF QUALITATIVE
INDICATORS
EXAMPLES OF QUANTITATIVE
INDICATORS
• Public and private social institutions:
The Red Cross, Associations of
Retired Persons, National Health
Insurance Institutions, Pension
Insurance Institutions, Labour and
Social Protection Institutions, public
and private residences, orphanages,
foundations, associations, retirement
homes, NGOs, etc.;
• Public institutions: from the field of
education, culture, health, city halls;
Private firms from the field of
transportation, trade, cleaning,
maintenance, financial, consultancy
and training activities, agriculture,
industry etc.
• Whether the products and services
provided by the organization have a
contribution in raising the quality of life;
• Whether the organization has a critical
position with regard to the excesses of
the society;
• If there is a proper information flow
inside and outside the organization;
• If the employees participate in the
decision-
making referring to their work, or
the future of the organization ;
•
If a particular attention is paid to labour
quality (protective clothing);
•
If efforts are made for the improvement
of the employees’ qualification;
• If the organization supports or is
sympathetic with underprivileged groups
or regions;
• If the suppliers, clients or collaborators
of the organization apply environment
protection policies;
•
If an ethics related criterion was applied
at the selection of the bank the
organization works with;
•
If the selective collection of the waste is
practiced.
• The quantity of recovered or
recycled materials;
•
The amount and the quality of the
products sold and the services
rendered;
• The number of trained
employees/year;
• The amount of granted credits;
• The quantity of food that was
donated to underprivileged groups;
• The number of granted
scholarships;
•
The number of complaints against
the organization;
• The number of cut jobs;
• The difference between the
highest and the lowest wages within
the organization;
• The quantity of re-used water;
• Costs associated to environment
protection;
• The number of papers or
publications on environment
protection, released by the
organization;
• % of the profit oriented towards
benefaction projects.
Source: Authors’ own processing, 2016
Conclusions
The development of the social audit concept in Romania
is extremely important, as its application contributes to:
- Improving the quality of the social services in
Romania;
- Developing a socially involved environmentally
responsible business environment;
- Guaranteeing that the fundamental rights and
principles of the employees are respected – the
payment of a decent salary, the labour health and
security, the absence of discriminations, the right to
association and collective negotiation etc;
- Improving the quality of the services rendered to
citizens by the public institutions;
- Respecting the right of the citizens to control those
governing the country and representing their
interests, or the right to participate actively in public
actions, in order to raise the quality of life in our
country;
- Increasing the transparency in all sectors of the
public and private, economic and social life from
Romania;
- Generating an new cultural attitude of the Romanian
citizens, of more active involvement in the public and
social activities.
In the attempt to build a more steady and sympathetic
society, what is important in Romania is both the
theoretical development of the social audit concept, and
the introduction of several elements from the practice of
those who have already been applying social audit.
The truth is that, as presented in the international
literature, the social audit is a complex process, which
takes time and is quite costly. The information amount

Ioana Iuliana GRIGORESCU, Camelia Daniela HAŢEGAN
AUDIT FINANCIAR, year XIV
1112
that can be provided by a social audit report is large and
able to respond to the requirements of different types of
stakeholders.
As prescribed by the Social Assistance Law, the social
audit can be performed in Romanian social institutions
by a social auditor, whose characteristics and
responsibilities will be determined by law. But what
would be the alternative to the external certification of
the social audit in Romania, for the other types of public
or private institutions?
In our opinion, one option could be the certification of the
social audit reports by a public institution, based on
previously determined criteria. With public institutions we
mean, for example, a department established within city
halls that would have the advantage of a good
knowledge of the local economic and social
environment, as well as of the rapid certification, due to
the proximity to the organizations from the region. The
risk associated to this option would be that the local
administration prescribes criteria which would not be
sufficiently relevant for a certain sector.
Another option, perhaps more interesting than the first
one, could be a combination between the local
administration and the professional bodies from different
sectors. This option would have the advantage that the
professional bodies would be able to identify the most
suitable indicators for each sector, while the certification
would be provided by the local administration, as an
external representative, with real credibility, which could
evaluate the social actions of the organizations.
For the beginning, several experimental engagements
could be performed, at the level of some city halls; these
could be subsequently generalized, based on the
concrete experience gathered.
The issues we presented had a purely theoretical
character, which might decrease the relevance of the
research; yet our main objective was to debate the
approached topic and to suggest theoretical solutions.
The research can be continued, as a future direction,
through a practical approach, in order to validate the
solutions we proposed and to identify possible
corrections, in order to perform a qualitative social audit.
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