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The concept of materiality is becoming increasingly important for sustainability performance measurement and reporting. It is widely agreed upon that materiality matters, in the sense that companies should identify, prioritize and disclose information on sustainability issues that are considered material. There is, however, a tension at the heart of this consensus, owing to parallel approaches to materiality being used in practice. This paper aims to shed light on how and why the parallel uses of the materiality concept may cause confusion and how this tension could be resolved.

This paper takes as point of departure the tension between two approaches to materiality: based on the Global Reporting Initiative definition, which emphasizes sustainability issues that are important to stakeholders and that have significant impacts and based on the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board definition, which emphasizes sustainability issues that are financially material, i.e. likely to influence the financial performance of the company. This paper discusses the nature and consequences of the tensions between how the two definitions of materiality in sustainability reporting are used in practice, with a particular emphasis on users of information in financial markets. This paper provides empirical insight on these users’ perspectives through a survey (n = 30) and qualitative interviews (n = 6) of financial market professionals.

This study reveals tensions between different approaches to materiality in practice and how this may lead users of sustainability reports to draw unjustified conclusions on the basis of materiality assessments. Specifically, this paper demonstrates the perceived shortcomings in information availability and information quality from the perspectives of different stakeholders in financial markets with different information needs.

The users of sustainability reporting information require clarity in the communication of materiality in non-financial reports. This paper addresses how such clarity can be pursued.

Clarity about materiality in non-financial reporting is important both for investors that pursue financial return on green investments and for society at large, which relies on information about real sustainability impacts.

This paper furthers the understanding of how different materiality concepts may be problematic and how recent and ongoing developments may mitigate the risks of conflating uses of the concept.

The study aims to test the applicability of a variant of the model proposed by Hockerts (2017) for assessing the social entrepreneurial intention (SEI) of male and female students. It extends the model by incorporating the university's environment and support system (ESS) as an additional more distal construct. The university's ESS, coupled with the experience with social, cultural and environmental issues can affect SEI by influencing the more proximal precursors of empathy towards others, perceived self-efficacy, perceived community support and social, cultural and environmental responsibility.

A structured non-disguised questionnaire was administered to students at a Canadian university. A sample of 485 usable responses was analysed by means of second-order structural equation modelling.

The results provide confirmation that the proposed model is a multi-group invariant and appropriate for analysing the SEI of male and female students. They also show that the university's ESS helps predict SEI indirectly through the complete mediation of the more proximal antecedents.

The questionnaire is limited to universities with social innovation and entrepreneurship initiatives.

Outcomes of the study can help universities assess the efficacy of their social innovation and entrepreneurship initiatives for instilling a social entrepreneurial mind-set in students. Consequently, universities will be better equipped to raise the perceptions of venture feasibility and desirability, thus increasing students' perceptions of opportunity.

The study advances the social entrepreneurial knowledge of the university's effect on the precursors of SEI.

Complex and adaptive challenges threaten human well-being and sustainability. However, our leadership graduates often lack the capacity and or commitment to address these challenges in a meaningful way. This paper details a five-year study exploring the impact of an interdisciplinary undergraduate course on the development of global capacities, complex Adaptive Leadership, Socially Responsible Agency, and systems thinking. The course instructors used innovative and intentionally divergent learning methods to challenge students to serve as stewards of their own knowledge and facilitators of their own learning through the confrontation of authentic and complex challenges. The researchers note transferable qualitative findings that demonstrate the profound impact of the noted leadership learning experience on the development of Socially Responsible Agency, along with Adaptive Leadership capacity and systems thinking.