Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become a central issue in the dairy industry. While it is well established that each company in a chain contributes to that chain's CSR, the role of co-operatives as a predominant organizational form has been understudied. Due to specific characteristics of co-operatives, one may hypothesize that these member-based dairies put a higher value on sustainability than investor-owned dairy firms. No previous study deals explicitly with the contents of CSR reports in the dairy industry, differentiating between co-operative and investor-owned dairies. We adapt an existing set of criteria to examine CSR reports from 13 German dairies and complete the picture by analyzing their websites. A comparison of formal, quality-related, and content-related criteria suggests that co-operative dairies report in a higher quality and more extensively about sustainability. The results provide first insights into organizational form-specific differences in sustainability reporting. Our findings highlight areas in which dairy companies can become more sustainable.

中文翻译：

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食品行业的企业社会责任报告——合作社与投资者拥有的乳制品企业的比较

企业社会责任 (CSR) 已成为乳制品行业的核心问题。虽然众所周知，连锁店中的每家公司都对该连锁店的 CSR 做出了贡献，但合作社作为主要组织形式的作用却没有得到充分研究。由于合作社的特定特征，人们可能会假设这些以成员为基础的乳制品公司比投资者拥有的乳制品公司更重视可持续性。以前没有研究明确涉及乳制品行业的企业社会责任报告的内容，区分合作乳制品和投资者拥有的乳制品。我们调整了一套现有的标准来检查来自 13 家德国乳品厂的 CSR 报告，并通过分析他们的网站来完成图片。正式的，质量相关的比较，和内容相关的标准表明，合作乳制品公司以更高质量和更广泛的方式报告可持续性。结果提供了对可持续发展报告中组织形式特定差异的初步见解。我们的研究结果突出了乳制品公司可以变得更具可持续性的领域。