B Corps and their social impact communication strategy: does the talk match the walk?

In 2015 the legislation regulating the legal status of Benefit Corporations, already widespread in the United States, was introduced in Italy. These companies aim to maximize shareholder income and pursue at the same time a social or environmental mission. Furthermore, in recent years, multiple tools for social impact measurement are spreading and consolidating (Grieco et al., 2015). This includes the B-impact assessment, a widely adopted tool developed by B-Lab, which issues the B Corp certification. B Corps represent future potential Benefit Corporations, especially in contexts and environments where there is no specific regulation (as in the case of Europe). In this scenario, scholars highlighted the importance for these company to measure their social impact and communicate their performance to stakeholders (Nigri and Michelini, 2016). Starting from these premises the aim of the study is to evaluate how European B-corps communicate their social impact online. In particular, it pinpoints the relationship between the level of social impact and the level of communication. To reach this goal a total of 110 B Corp websites were analysed using a mix of variables. Finally, the data was organized using a 2x2 matrix where four main areas where identified. Each area corresponds to a specific behaviour: best practices, overexposed, newbies and undervalued. What emerged was the need for B Corps to improve their communication activities (which had a low performance score) in order to ensure maximum dissemination and visibility of their social commitment.