The Indicators of the Corporate Social Responsibility: A Search for Efficiency or a Concern for Legitimacy Towards Stakeholders? A Proposed Explanatory Model

2. Th E Csr Indicators: A New Management Control Tool

Within a sustainable development context, the performance measurement can only be done on the basis of accounting and financial information (Depoers et al., 2003). The use of non-financial indicators appears to be a necessity for driving a performance whose content and contours have widened. The literature does not give a synthetic definition of the notion of non-financial indicators (Évelyne and Grégory, 2005); however, they are most often apprehended as opposed to financial indicators. They are non-financial because they do not directly reflect the financial purpose as can the economic indicators derived from the company's financial statements. Kaplan and Norton (2003) argue that non-financial indicators complement the financial indicators that remain focused on short-term action. Moreover, they tend to translate social (Martory, 1999) and ecological concerns (Oxibar, 2009) of the company, and they fall within the framework of a strategic vision.