Is Sustainability Reporting Becoming Institutionalised? The Role of an Issues-Based Field (original) (raw)
Related papers
Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, 2020
PurposeThis paper aims to deepen the understanding of logics and practice variation in sustainability reporting in an emerging field.Design/methodology/approachThis paper adopts the institutional logics perspective and its conceptualization of society as an inter-institutional system as a theoretical lens to understand reasons for the presence of and variation in sustainability reporting. The empirical findings are based on analysis of 28 semi-structured interviews with significant social actors, and extensive documentary evidence focusing on eight companies pioneering sustainability reporting in Pakistan.FindingsThis paper confirms the presence of multiple co-existing logics in sustainability practices and lack of a dominant logic. Sustainability reporting practices are underpinned by a combination of market and corporate (business logics), state (regulatory logics), professional (transparency logics) and community (responsibility logics) institutional orders. It is argued that ins...
Understanding how managers institutionalise sustainability reporting
Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, 2019
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore how sustainability reporting managers (SRMs) institutionalise sustainability reporting within organisations. Design/methodology/approach In total, 35 semi-structured interviews with SRMs in Australia and New Zealand were analysed using an institutional work perspective. Findings SRMs’ institutional work can be categorised into four phases with each phase representing a different approach to sustainability reporting. Organisations transition from phase one to four as they achieve a higher level of maturity and a deeper embedding and routinisation of sustainability reporting. These include educating and advocacy work undertaken by engaging with managers (phase one), transitioning to a decentralised sustainability reporting process (phase two), transitioning to leaner, focussed, materiality driven sustainability reporting (phase three), and using sustainability key performance indicators and materiality assessment reports for planning, de...
Sustainability Accounting, Management and Policy Journal, 2021
Purpose This paper aims to explore why a company voluntarily engages in the sustainability reporting process, how this process becomes institutionalised and the resulting effects. Design/methodology/approach The research focusses on a single case study, conducted following an action research approach and interpreted through the lens of institutional work. According to the institutional work theoretical perspective, the individual or organisation is responsible for creating, maintaining or disrupting institutions. Findings The case company, Deco S.p.A., undertook sustainability reporting to clarify the values that the company was founded upon and how those values translate into management practice. By institutionalising the sustainability reporting process, Deco S.p.A. found its corporate climate improved, various aspects of its operations could be rationalised and the information gathered to produce the report was valuable for decision support. Practical implications This research p...
Meditari Accountancy Research
Purpose This paper aims to trace subsequent steps of the sustainability reporting evolution in terms of changes in the organisation fields and professional jurisdictions involved. As such, it highlights the (interrelated) organisational and professional challenges associated with the progressive incorporation of “sustainability” within corporate reporting. Design/methodology/approach The paper draws on Suddaby and Viale’s (2011) theorisation of how professionals reshape organisational fields to highlight how organisational spaces, actors, rules and professional capital evolve alongside the incorporation of sustainability within corporate reporting. Findings The paper shows organisational spaces, actors, rules and professional capital mobilised during the recent evolution of sustainability reporting, starting from a period in which there was no space for sustainability, to more recent periods in which sustainability gained increasing momentum beyond initial niches, and culminating in...
The Institutionalization of Corporate Social Responsibility Reporting
Business and Society, 2016
This article received the Best Paper Finalist award from Business & Society journal in 2017. Paper was recognized at the 2017 Academy of Management Meeting in Chicago. This article presents a three-stage model of how isomorphic mechanisms have shaped corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting practices over time. In the first stage, defensive reporting, companies fail to meet stakeholder expectations due to a deficiency in firm performance. In this stage, the decision to report is driven by coercive isomorphism as firms sense pressure to close the expectational gap. In the second stage, proactive reporting, knowledge of CSR reporting spreads and the practice of CSR reporting becomes normatively sanctioned. In this stage, normative isomorphism leads other organizations to look to CSR reporting as a potential new opportunity for achieving the firm's goals. In the third stage, imitative diffusion, the defensive reporters together with the proactive reporters create a critical mass of CSR reporters that reaches a threshold at which the benefits of CSR reporting begin to outweigh any costs due to mimetic isomorphism. The study finds support for the model in an examination of Fortune 500 firms from 1997 to 2006.
Institutional Constraints, Stakeholder Pressure and Corporate Environmental Reporting Policies
Business Strategy and the Environment, 2017
Within the theoretical framework of socio-political economics, and more specifically of stakeholder theory, this work examines whether companies operating under different institutional constraints and stakeholder pressure tend to emphasize different models of corporate environmental reporting. Furthermore, the paper tests whether different corporate environmental reporting policies are driven by the countries' corporate governance systems. A sample of 3931 international companies was examined through a logistic biplot and conditional mean linear regression models. The main results reveal that companies follow two distinct environmental reporting approaches, which depend on specific stakeholders and institutional requirements. The first model, which is followed by firms within codified law countries, mostly focuses on water and emissions. The second approach, mainly followed by companies operating in common law countries, emphasizes materials and energy issues. This finding reveals that companies gradually modify their environmental strategies to make themselves more compatible with the characteristics of the social and institutional environment, which will result in several corporate benefits. The paper provides several outstanding implications for companies' strategic managers, national institutions and firms' stakeholders, especially for investors and customers.
Frontiers in Environmental Science
Integrated Reporting (IR), as a novel sustainability-oriented organizational reporting approach, is expected to produce better corporate reporting for stakeholders and promote greater transparency and accountability in the capital market. This paper offers a theoretical framework that integrates five mainstream IR theories: stakeholder theory, agency theory, signalling theory, legitimacy theory, and institutional theory. Based on the theoretical framework, there are three drivers for companies to improve their IR disclosure practices: to mitigate information asymmetry between the organisation and all stakeholders; to signal superior quality, legitimacy, and conformity to all stakeholders; and to discharge accountability to all stakeholders. Direct and indirect costs are the main factors that lead to poor IR disclosure practices. This study is the first attempt to construct an integrated theoretical framework for IR. The constructed framework can be adopted as a theoretical foundatio...
The boundary of sustainability reporting: evidence from the FTSE100
Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to use a multi-disciplinary theoretical understanding of boundary setting to develop a quadripartite model in which sustainability reporting boundaries are classified as “Reputation Management”, “Ownership and Control”, “Accountability”; and, “Stakeholder Engagement”. Content analysis is then used to empirically test the model. Design/methodology/approach Using impression management theory, rationalism, systems and contingency theory, and network theory, a model is created which classifies sustainability reporting boundaries. Content analysis is used to empirically test boundaries across the disclosure of 49 GRI topics by the FTSE100. Findings Sustainability reporting fails to discharge accountability due to adoption of narrow “Reputation Management” boundaries. Boundaries are significantly (p<0.0001) narrower than previous research suggests. Findings support impression management theory as the strongest theory to predict reporting content. An...
Just a Paper Tiger? Exploration of Sustainability Reporting as a Corporate Communication Instrument
Sustainability Accounting and Reporting, 2006
One corporate communication instrument which is now gaining its popularity is the sustainability reporting. The advantages and possibilities of communicating with a sustainability report (SR) are often discussed in a more theoretical view, but a few empirical analyses regarding this are now being conducted. This paper concentrates on the empirical analyses of communication process between companies and their stakeholders with the help of SR. The questions that emerge in this regard are: Who reads sustainability reports? Can sustainability reporting be an all-purpose tool in the effort to attract and manage the interests of various stakeholder groups? Or is it just a matter of joining the trend by producing sustainability reports rather than finally using them to achieve corporate goals? Two case studies were conducted (Deutsche Telekom AG and Weleda AG) by interviewing managers and stakeholders of both companies during September 2003 and January 2004. The results of the research show that the communication with an SR can only be successful, not only by producing a detailed, clear and structured report, but also most importantly by improving the engagement with the SR.