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Organisational communication on climate change: The influence of the institutional context and the adoption pattern

Jose Maria Gonzalez Gonzalez (Department of Accounting and Finance, University of Seville, Seville, Spain)
Constancio Zamora Ramírez (Department of Accounting and Finance, University of Seville, Seville, Spain)

International Journal of Climate Change Strategies and Management

ISSN: 1756-8692

Article publication date: 21 March 2016

634

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to analyse how the components of the institutional context and the adoption patterns of business practices determine the approach to carbon reporting used by organisations.

Design/methodology/approach

Drawing on the New Institutional Sociology theory, this paper analyses, compares and interprets the results of the cases of four large Spanish companies which operate in different organisational fields and therefore they are subject to different institutional pressures. The results of these case studies illustrate the different approaches to carbon reporting used by organisations.

Findings

The theoretical proposal of this paper establishes that the components of the institutional context (regulative, normative and cognitive), along with the adoption pattern used by organisations to control their carbon emissions (substantive or symbolic), contribute to determining their approach to carbon reporting (outside-in, inside-out, twin-track and isolated).

Originality/value

The approaches to reporting and the adoption patterns have been considered independently in the previous literature, paying also scarce attention to the components of the institutional context that can have an influence on the approach to reporting used by organisations to share their environmental information. This paper contributes to bridge this gap, and its results can be of interest for supporting the decisions of policymakers, managers of organisations and society in general.

Keywords

Citation

Gonzalez Gonzalez, J.M. and Zamora Ramírez, C. (2016), "Organisational communication on climate change: The influence of the institutional context and the adoption pattern", International Journal of Climate Change Strategies and Management, Vol. 8 No. 2, pp. 286-316. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJCCSM-10-2014-0126

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2016, Emerald Group Publishing Limited

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