Patrice De Micco, Loredana Rinaldi, Gianluca Vitale, Sebastiano Cupertino and Maria Pia Maraghini
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the challenges that companies could face over time when dealing with sustainability reporting (SR) and focusses on potential mechanisms…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the challenges that companies could face over time when dealing with sustainability reporting (SR) and focusses on potential mechanisms they may adopt to cope with them.
Design/methodology/approach
The investigation is conducted adopting the theoretical framework proposed by Baret and Helfrich (2018) and using a longitudinal case study.
Findings
The authors found that the challenges that gradually arose induced the evolution of SR. Dissemination, employees’ involvement, managerial commitment and routinization/institutionalization of reporting practices appeared to be useful mechanisms to face the related challenges. Conversely, the authors found that stakeholders’ engagement scarcely affected SR. Furthermore, the legislation impacted the extent and quality of disclosed contents and fostered the standardization of the reporting process.
Practical implications
In analysing how Estra faced SR challenges, this paper emphasizes the mechanisms that can be used to properly manage them, in a gradual and holistic way. Hence, this study offers a useful example for companies approaching SR for the first time.
Originality/value
The authors adopt a holistic theoretical perspective providing evidence on how SR development within a company depends on the continuous and integrated management of its multiple challenges, also suggesting that its interdependencies with the definition and execution of sustainability should be exploited.
Details
Keywords
Alessandro Lai and Riccardo Stacchezzini
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…
Abstract
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 more integrated forms of sustainability reporting.
Research limitations/implications
Although the analysis is limited to empirical evidence collected by prior research and practice on sustainability reporting, the paper offers a view to imagine how the incorporation of sustainability within corporate reporting relies on and affects organisational fields and professional jurisdictions.
Originality/value
The paper offers a lens to interpret corporate and professional challenges associated with the more recent evolutions of sustainability reporting practice and standard setting. It also allows framing the papers accepted in the special issue on “new challenges in sustainability reporting” and concludes by suggesting an agenda for future research.