The limits of institutional work: a field study on auditors' efforts to promote sustainability assurance in a trust society
Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal
ISSN: 0951-3574
Article publication date: 2 September 2021
Issue publication date: 8 January 2021
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to enrich extant understanding of the role of both agency and context in the uptake of sustainability assurance. To this end, the authors examine auditors' attempts to promote sustainability assurance and establish it as a practice requiring the professional involvement of auditors.
Design/methodology/approach
Applying institutional work (Lawrence and Suddaby, 2006) and institutional logics (Thornton, 2002; Thornton et al., 2012) as the method theories, the authors examine interview data and a variety of documentary evidence collected in Finland, a small society characterized by social and environmental values, beliefs in functioning institutions and public trust in companies behaving responsibly.
Findings
With this study, the authors make two main contributions to extant literature. First, the authors illustrate the limits that society-level logics related to corporate social responsibility, together with the undermining or rejected institutional work of other agents, place especially on the political and cultural work undertaken by auditors. Second, the study responds to Power's (2003) call for country-specific studies by exploring a rather unique context, Finland, where societal trust in companies is arguably stronger than in many other countries and this trust appears to affect how actors perceive the need for sustainability assurance.
Originality/value
This is one of the few accounting studies that combines institutional logics and institutional work to study the uptake of a management fashion, in this case sustainability assurance.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Paul Andon, Oana Apostol, Chris Chapman, Conor Clune, Clinton Free, Matias Laine, Kari Lukka, Gary Monroe, Peeter Peda, Johanna Rämö and Prabhu Sivabalan for their detailed and insightful comments on the manuscript. Previous versions of the paper have been presented at the respective Accounting and Finance Research Seminars of Turku School of Economics, Aalto University Business School, University of Tampere, University of New South Wales and University of Technology Sydney; the 25th CSEAR Conference at St. Andrews, Scotland and the FRASOP 3 workshop at London School of Economics. The comments from the audiences of those events are also gratefully acknowledged. Eija Vinnari's work was supported by the Academy of Finland research grant (decision no. 324215). Both authors are also thankful for the research grants from the Foundation for Economic Education and Finland's Sustainable Investment Forum (Finsif).
Citation
Silvola, H. and Vinnari, E. (2021), "The limits of institutional work: a field study on auditors' efforts to promote sustainability assurance in a trust society", Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Vol. 34 No. 1, pp. 1-30. https://doi.org/10.1108/AAAJ-02-2019-3890
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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