The Role of Universities in Iraqi in Disclosing Social Responsibility to Achieve Sustainable Development in Accordance with the GRI-G4 Initiative

ABSTRACT : This research aims to study and analyze the level of social responsibility disclosure and discover the reality of Iraqi private universities (the research sample) and the dimensions they use to fulfill their social obligations. It is also to suggest scales that could improve the level of social responsibility disclosure at private universities to the Ministry of Higher Education in order to assist them in integrating the level of social responsibility disclosure. The study is based on the premise that private Iraqi universities recognize the necessity of reporting social responsibility in their reports in accordance with the GRI-G4 approach in order to improve the quality of sustainability reports. The Researcher analyzed data from eight private universities, where they analyzed the final financial statements that were audited by the Federal Financial Supervision Bureau in 2017 and which were the research's sample, the reports of the Federal Financial Supervision Bureau, the management reports prepared by the private universities, and the available websites of the research. The data analysis results are gathered, and the number (1) is identified in the event of discovering activities connected to social responsibility specified in the suggested dimensions developed according to the GRI-G4 viewpoint, and (0) is found in the absence of activities. The percentages of universities' disclosure levels in each dimension were extracted, and it was concluded that there are deficiencies in the disclosure level of some areas of activities related to social responsibility for the research sample's private universities with respect to the governance dimension, which was 46.8%, i.e. low, and the environmental dimension, which was 61.2%, i.e. medium, and the societal dimension, which was the highest proportion of all dimensions, was 81.2%, i.e. good, and the study also includes several recommendations, the most important of which is the need to include the concept of social responsibility and its dimensions within its strategic plan to achieve sustainable development, with support for those private universities that achieve high levels of social responsibility disclosure and stimulation for colleges that have low rates through a variety of proposed methods.