Social responsibility of business: basic provisions of identification audit

In article the procedures of internal control and social audit relating to the organizations and the enterprises of any organizational and legal environment, which according to the legislation or corporate policy implement social responsibility principles, are considered and generalized at the new, higher level (in comparison with compliance audit) - the level of identification audit. Authors have proved necessity and have investigated the possibility of inclusion of the identification audit procedures in methods of economic subjects' social responsibility audit. Authors allocate identification audit in the independent section due to the following reasons. First, tasks of identification audit significantly differ from traditional problems of the reporting reliability confirmation and assessment of compliance of its indicators calculation methods to the legislation. Secondly, the specifics of solving problems define character of the applied procedures and information base of audit evidences. Thirdly, results of identification audit may be considered as a base for planning of social audit procedures as they provide diagnostics of level of economic subject social responsibility. In article the content of procedures of identification audit in relation to social responsibility of cooperatives and joint-stock companies of workers (employee-owned enterprise) is disclosed. The choice of cooperatives is determined by the fact that the theory and practice of internal and external control of their activity is characterized by certain degree of methodological completeness. At the same time, there are no theoretical and practical developments, concerning to joint-stock companies of workers (employee-owned enterprise), and results revealed in this article represent the first attempt of identification. According to authors, assessment of real social responsibility of business is necessary firstly for self-identification of the company, but also it is very important for the company public image strengthening in the external environment. So authors developed the system of criteria and indicators used for the characteristic of compliance of the current activity to the declared status in the external environment and are clear to target groups of interested parties. When forming system of indicators authors proceeded from the potential of information provided in the public reporting and the key interests of the parties interested in results of identification. Use of system of indicators will allow define a judgment of the auditor on compliance or noncompliance of activity of the organization positioning itself as the subject of socially responsible business to the declared goals.

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