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1 – 10 of over 78000Samantha Miles and Kate Ringham
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…
Abstract
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 ownership and control boundary, although widely criticized, represents the boundary of progressive reporters, lending marginal support for economic theories. Accountability boundaries are scarce. No evidence was found for stakeholder engagement boundaries.
Practical implications
The determination of boundary is critical to the discharge of accountability. A critical consideration of boundary setting is required, including authentic stakeholder engagement in determining boundaries and transparency of boundary adopted. The results are ranked to enable benchmarking of the FTSE100. Boundaries can be widened through regulation or “name and shame campaigns”.
Originality/value
This paper provides a theory-informed advancement in thinking on sustainability reporting boundary setting and the importance of this for advancing sustainability reporting quality.
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Rebecca Maughan and Aideen O'Dochartaigh
This study examines how accounting tools and techniques are used to create and support membership and reporting boundaries for a multi-entity sustainability scheme. It also…
Abstract
Purpose
This study examines how accounting tools and techniques are used to create and support membership and reporting boundaries for a multi-entity sustainability scheme. It also considers whether boundary setting for this initiative helps to connect corporate activity with planetary boundaries and the SDGs.
Design/methodology/approach
A case study of a national agrifood sustainability scheme, analysing extensive documentary data and multi-entity sustainability reports. The concept of partial organising is used to frame the analysis.
Findings
Accounting, in the form of planning, verification, target setting, annual review and reporting, can be used to create a membership and a reporting boundary. Accounting tools and techniques support the scheme's standard-setting and monitoring elements. The study demonstrates that the scheme offers innovation in how sustainability reporting is managed. However, it does not currently provide a cumulative assessment of the effect of the sector's activity on ecological carrying capacity or connect this activity to global sustainability indicators.
Research limitations/implications
Future research can build on this study's insights to further develop our understanding of multi-entity sustainability reporting and accounting's role in organising for sustainability. The authors identify several research avenues including: boundary setting in ecologically significant sectors, integrating global sustainability indicators at sectoral and organisational levels, sustainability controls in multi-entity settings and the potential of multi-entity reporting to provide substantive disclosure.
Originality/value
This paper provides insight into accounting's role in boundary setting for a multi-entity sustainability initiative. It adds to our understanding of the potential of a multi-entity reporting boundary to support connected measurement between corporate activity and global sustainability indicators. It builds on work on partial organising and provides insight into how accounting can support this form of organising for sustainability.
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The purpose of this paper is to enhance conceptual understanding of reporting boundaries in corporate annual reports by developing a conceptual framework of the rules and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to enhance conceptual understanding of reporting boundaries in corporate annual reports by developing a conceptual framework of the rules and principles, referred to here as dimensions, underlying boundaries. A total of nine contemporary regulations/guidelines are compared in terms of the boundary dimensions identified to illustrate similarities and differences in boundary concepts.
Design/methodology/approach
To develop a conceptual framework of reporting boundary dimensions, academic and industry literature were analysed to identify boundary dimensions. Thereafter, nine contemporary regulations/guidelines were compared in terms of these dimensions. A qualitative approach was taken including document analysis and content analysis.
Findings
A total of 10 key boundary dimensions were identified through analysis of academic and industry literature. Each dimension represents a continuum along which regulations/guidelines can position themselves. Taken together, the 10 dimensions provide a comprehensive description of the chosen boundary concept.
Originality/value
The paper contributes to accounting theory by providing a holistic conceptual framework of dimensions relating to reporting boundaries, thus answering calls for more conceptual development of the boundary construct. The conceptual framework and comparison of contemporary regulations/guidelines adds to scarce literature considering financial and non-financial boundaries simultaneously, which is relevant for annual reports. From a practical perspective, the paper brings renewed visibility to boundaries with implications for preparers, users, standard setters and auditors of annual reports.
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Carla Antonini, Cornelia Beck and Carlos Larrinaga
This paper explores the subpolitical role and main characteristics of a specific accounting technique, sustainability reporting boundaries. Its focus is on how the sett2ing of…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper explores the subpolitical role and main characteristics of a specific accounting technique, sustainability reporting boundaries. Its focus is on how the sett2ing of sustainability reporting boundaries affects the definition and distribution of social risks along the supply chain, particularly the risks related to working condition and human rights.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper draws on Beck's (1986) exploration of the ways in which techno-economic spheres offer opportunities for the politicisation of new areas. It is argued that the sphere of sustainability reporting offers that opportunity for the politicisation of supply chains. Using the case of Inditex, the historical context of initiatives relating to the ready-made garment (RMG) industry at global, European and industry level as well as media coverage on the entity are analysed; this is correlated with the analysis of boundary setting in relation to sustainability reports, focusing specifically on working conditions.
Findings
The analysis suggests that accounting technologies that set contested boundaries are subpolitical, that is, defined outside traditional political processes. The paper finds that the way social risks are framed along the supply chain renders them invisible and impersonal and that the framing of these risks becomes endless as they are contested by different groups of experts. Setting sustainability reporting boundaries has subpolitical properties in producing and framing those risks, whilst is simultaneously limited by the inherent politicisation of such an exercise. The questionable legitimacy of sustainability reporting boundaries calls for the construction not only of discursive justifications but also of new possibilities for political participation.
Research limitations/implications
The analysis is limited to working conditions along one organisation's supply chain.
Originality/value
The contribution of this paper is threefold: (1) It studies in-depth how working conditions in global supply chains are portrayed in sustainability reports. (2) It answers the call to study accounting technologies themselves, in this case sustainability reporting boundaries. (3) It extends Beck's work on global ecological dangers to working conditions in global supply chains to explore how sustainability reporting boundaries are subpolitically involved in the definition and distribution of social risks along the supply chain.
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Manuel Fernández Chulián, Nicolas Garcia-Torea, Carlos Larrinaga and Jan Bebbington
The study investigates how sustainability reporting constructs a narrative about an organization that provides its members with a reality they can accept, with the consequence of…
Abstract
Purpose
The study investigates how sustainability reporting constructs a narrative about an organization that provides its members with a reality they can accept, with the consequence of producing organizational stability.
Design/methodology/approach
The article reports a research engagement concerning the “backstage” of sustainability reporting in one Spanish savings bank, which the researchers engaged with for more than three years.
Findings
The article describes how sustainability reporting operates as a boundary object occupying the space between the organization’s loosely coupled systems and facilitating the cooperation of members with different interpretations of the organization. Different translations of discourses and actions ensure that the sustainability report conveys a ductile narrative that can be tailored to specific interpretations. At the same time, the editing inherent in sustainability reporting ensures that any narrative that may challenge the organization’s dominant perspective is ignored and marginalized. In this way, sustainability reporting produces a discourse that inscribes a narrative of the organization and eventually ensures organizational inertia.
Research limitations/implications
The article highlights the relevance of investigating sustainability reports by exploring the backstage of their production rather than solely the final document.
Originality/value
In contrast to prior research that has been concerned with exploring the extent to which sustainability reporting is associated with organizational change, this study applies different lenses to show how and why sustainability reporting is implicated in the construction of the organization and the maintenance of its stability and inertia.
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This paper aims to explore the important role boundaries play in back-office framing of environmental engagement. This is of particular interest because it is not clear how…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore the important role boundaries play in back-office framing of environmental engagement. This is of particular interest because it is not clear how organizations in an industry without standardized environmental reporting navigate their boundaries behind the scenes and why they engage with the environment the way they do. This element of their environmental identity offers important insights into the emergence of sustainability reporting.
Design/methodology/approach
Guided by Miles and Ringham (2019) the authors conduct an ethnography of the Montana ski industry. The ethnography includes extensive on-site observations at nine Montana ski areas and interviews with 16 ski area executives, two regulators and a land development executive.
Findings
The authors find three key boundaries – accountability structure, degree of regulatory burden and impact measurement approach – that shape the back-office economic and environmental framing of ski executives (Goffman, 1959, 1974). From these back-office frames the authors identify four front-office cultural performances – community ecosystem, quantitative ownership, approval seeking and advocacy platform – that represent the environmental engagement strategies at these resorts.
Practical implications
Understanding the relationships between boundaries and environmental engagement is an important step in developing appropriate industry-wide environmental accountability and sustainability expectations. The study’s findings extend to other industries that are both highly dependent on the environment and are in the early stages of developing environmental reporting standards.
Originality/value
Ski resorts operate in an industry that is impacted by changes in the natural environment. The authors chronicle the process by which boundaries lead to framing which leads to environmental engagement in this weather-dependent industry. The authors explain the process of environmental identity building, the result of which both precedes environmental reporting and puts such reporting into context. In this sense, the authors show how boundaries are set and maintained in the ski resort industry, and how fundamental these boundaries are to the development of individual companies' environmental engagement strategies.
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Andrea Liesen, Andreas G. Hoepner, Dennis M. Patten and Frank Figge
The purpose of this paper is to seek to shed light on the practice of incomplete corporate disclosure of quantitative Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and investigates whether…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to seek to shed light on the practice of incomplete corporate disclosure of quantitative Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and investigates whether external stakeholder pressure influences the existence, and separately, the completeness of voluntary GHG emissions disclosures by 431 European companies.
Design/methodology/approach
A classification of reporting completeness is developed with respect to the scope, type and reporting boundary of GHG emissions based on the guidelines of the GHG Protocol, Global Reporting Initiative and the Carbon Disclosure Project. Logistic regression analysis is applied to examine whether proxies for exposure to climate change concerns from different stakeholder groups influence the existence and/or completeness of quantitative GHG emissions disclosure.
Findings
From 2005 to 2009, on average only 15 percent of companies that disclose GHG emissions report them in a manner that the authors consider complete. Results of regression analyses suggest that external stakeholder pressure is a determinant of the existence but not the completeness of emissions disclosure. Findings are consistent with stakeholder theory arguments that companies respond to external stakeholder pressure to report GHG emissions, but also with legitimacy theory claims that firms can use carbon disclosure, in this case the incomplete reporting of emissions, as a symbolic act to address legitimacy exposures.
Practical implications
Bringing corporate GHG emissions disclosure in line with recommended guidelines will require either more direct stakeholder pressure or, perhaps, a mandated disclosure regime. In the meantime, users of the data will need to carefully consider the relevance of the reported data and develop the necessary competencies to detect and control for its incompleteness. A more troubling concern is that stakeholders may instead grow to accept less than complete disclosure.
Originality/value
The paper represents the first large-scale empirical study into the completeness of companies’ disclosure of quantitative GHG emissions and is the first to analyze these disclosures in the context of stakeholder pressure and its relation to legitimation.
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Indrit Troshani and Nick Rowbottom
Information infrastructures can enable or constrain how companies pursue their visions of sustainability reporting and help address the urgent need to understand how corporate…
Abstract
Purpose
Information infrastructures can enable or constrain how companies pursue their visions of sustainability reporting and help address the urgent need to understand how corporate activity affects sustainability outcomes and how socio-ecological challenges affect corporate activity. The paper examines the relationship between sustainability reporting information infrastructures and sustainability reporting practice.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper mobilises a socio-technical perspective and the conception of infrastructure, the socio-technical arrangement of technical artifacts and social routines, to engage with a qualitative dataset comprised of interview and documentary evidence on the development and construction of sustainability reporting information.
Findings
The results detail how sustainability reporting information infrastructures are used by companies and depict the difficulties faced in generating reliable sustainability data. The findings illustrate the challenges and measures undertaken by entities to embed automation and integration, and to enhance sustainability data quality. The findings provide insight into how infrastructures constrain and support sustainability reporting practices.
Originality/value
The paper explains how infrastructures shape sustainability reporting practices, and how infrastructures are shaped by regulatory demands and costs. Companies have developed “uneven” infrastructures supporting legislative requirements, whilst infrastructures supporting non-legislative sustainability reporting remain underdeveloped. Consequently, infrastructures supporting specific legislation have developed along unitary pathways and are often poorly integrated with infrastructures supporting other sustainability reporting areas. Infrastructures developed around legislative requirements are not necessarily constrained by financial reporting norms and do not preclude specific sustainability reporting visions. On the contrary, due to regulation, infrastructure supporting disclosures that offer an “inside out” perspective on sustainability reporting is often comparatively well developed.
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Dominic Kelly and Jonathan Potter
Professional boundary violations – intentional blurring, minimising or exploiting of institutions’ ethical and legal frameworks – have the potential to cause significant harm to…
Abstract
Purpose
Professional boundary violations – intentional blurring, minimising or exploiting of institutions’ ethical and legal frameworks – have the potential to cause significant harm to prisoners, staff, prison systems and the public. There has been little empirical research on the nature, extent and impact of boundary violations in UK prisons. The purpose of this paper is to synthesise and critically review studies which have sought to explore, measure and predict boundary violative behaviour, with a view to direct future research and inform prison policies and practices.
Design/methodology/approach
Four internet-based bibliographic databases were used for this review. Inclusion and exclusion criteria were applied. Twenty studies published between 2001 and 2022 were included in this review.
Findings
There is a lack of comprehensive self-report measures around prison boundary violations. Staff and prisoner characteristics, as well as prison-specific conditions, are linked with boundary violations. Staff training, improved working conditions and amnesty programmes as well as bolstered surveillance and restricted cross-sex staff deployment were among recommendations to reduce boundary violations. “Insider” researchers offer insight and access opportunities, but they also pose ethical implications. Current studies have research design, participant sampling and measurement scale limitations which compromises the applicability of findings. Prisons need robust policies on defining, reporting, punishing and recovering from boundary violations. Collaboration between prison institutions and academics, using individuals with experience of both professions, is essential to understand, predict and reduce boundary violations.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first review of empirical studies on professional boundary violations in prison.
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Caterina Pesci, Paola Vola and Lorenzo Gelmini
This paper discusses the evolution of sustainability reporting and the role of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) in relation to the social and environmental accounting (SEA…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper discusses the evolution of sustainability reporting and the role of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) in relation to the social and environmental accounting (SEA) literature calling for a revolution in the standardization of sustainability reporting and the inherent complexities. This paper focuses on the future role of GRI in light of the changes resulting from harmonization supported by the International Sustainability Standards Board and the European Financial Reporting Advisory Group’s draft European Sustainability Reporting Directive.
Design/methodology/approach
Building on Bourdieu (1983, 1992) and SEA studies, the authors adopt a critical and qualitative approach to theorize power dynamics in the sustainability reporting field. After identifying the main issues arising from the complexity of the sustainability reporting standards and practices according to SEA scholars, the authors connect them with Bourdieu’s (1992, 1983) field theory to discuss the future role of GRI.
Findings
The findings suggest two distinct but intertwined roles that GRI could play in the future, namely, power related and theoretical/technical, aimed at engendering revolutionary rather than evolutionary changes in sustainability reporting.
Practical implications
This study offers practical implications for GRI to strengthen its future role in sustainability reporting standardization.
Social implications
The limited time available to mitigate the disastrous consequences of non-sustainable business on society and the environment calls for urgently addressing the complexities of sustainability accounting to foster a positive impact on society and the environment.
Originality/value
The authors’ reflections reclaim the SEA literature as central to identifying sustainability complexity and Bourdieu’s (1983, 1992) notions of power as key to understanding the role of GRI in the sustainability field. Furthermore, this paper emphasizes the intersection of different critical concepts, including power, complexity, value, capital and materiality.
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