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This paper uses institutional theory to analyze the structure of the sustainability assurance market (SAM) at a global level. The purpose of this paper is to determine if regional differences affect industry specialization in this market.

Using a sample of 3,657 sustainability reports (SRs) with assurance statements, the authors study the global and regional specialization of assurers by breaking down the sample into three main regions. The authors approach industry specialization using previous methodologies applied to the financial audit market, and explain differences statistically significant among regions.

The authors find different industry specialists depending on the geographical region in which the audit firm is located. The Europe, Middle Eastern and Africa region has the highest number of industry specialists and the Asia-Pacific region the lowest. Notwithstanding the global participation of Big 4 firms, assurance specialization depends on the country where the company is located.

The paper reveals the need to include regional differences in the analysis of the SAM at the international level.

The study shows an in-depth study of the SAM that may be useful for assurers, to decide strategic actions in industries and countries and for regulators, to control the risk of monopolistic/oligopolistic markets.

The study presents a novel approach to the analysis of the assurance market for SRs, by studying it from the supply point of view. The analysis provides a measure of specialization that may help understand the structure of the SAM.

This paper aims to analyse the impact of the European Union (EU) Directive on the quality of sustainability reporting under the institutional theory lens. Specifically, the authors evaluate what kind of institutional pressure has the highest impact on the quality of corporate disclosure on sustainability issues.

The authors build a quality index based on the content analysis of sustainability information disclosed, before and after the transposition of the Directive, by Italian and Spanish companies belonging to different industries. The authors use an OLS regression model to analyse the effect of coercive, normative and mimetic forces on the quality of the sustainability reports.

The results highlight that normative and mimetic mechanisms positively affect the quality of sustainability reporting, whereas there is no evidence regarding coercive mechanisms, indicating that the new requirements do not provide a significant contribution to the development of better reporting practices, at least in the two analysed countries.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the few studies assessing the quality of sustainability reporting through an analysis involving the period before and after the implementation of the EU Directive. It enriches the literature on institutional theory by analysing how the different dimensions of isomorphism affect the quality of information disclosed by companies according to the EU requirements. It contributes to a better understanding of the impact of the non-financial information Directive, and the results of this paper can be relevant for regulators, practitioners and academia, especially in view of the adoption of the new Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive proposal.