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This paper aims to provide new insights on the determinants of social and economic sustainability reportings of multinational enterprises (MNEs) in three Anglo-Saxon countries, mainly Australia, the UK and South Africa, from the perspective of corporate governance, stakeholder and corporate legitimacy.

This paper examines stand-alone sustainability reports of 67 large MNEs from three countries available in the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) website for the period of 2008-2009. It undertakes two distinct methodological approaches: first, principal component analysis (PCA) of GRI guidelines (G3) on social and economic indicators to identify the most appropriate dependent variables, and second, hierarchical multiple regression for the hypotheses testing and finding determinants of respective dependent variables on social and economic reportings.

The results from the PCA of GRI guidelines (G3) provide an alternative way of categorizing the social and economic indicators when compared to the categories given by the GRI. Again, the results from hierarchical multiple regression indicate the industry sector as the dominant determinant of social and economic reportings. In particular, the positive, significant association of board independence, assurance and employee performance variables with economic reporting confirms the significant roles of corporate governance, stakeholders and corporate legitimacy in determining economic reporting. The findings also suggest the complementary nature of relevant theories in corporate voluntary disclosures relating to economic performance. However, social reporting shows no such relations, which rather relies more on firm-specific/financial variables of MNEs including firm size and age.

The sample of this study is limited to two-year periods and large MNEs available in the GRI website with stand-alone sustainability reports only.

The PCA focuses on most relevant and specific categories of social and economic reportings as opposed to GRI generic categories. The PCA findings also suggest the GRI to contemplate reducing the social and economic indicators for future guidelines. The hierarchical multiple regression results highlight specific areas of emphasis that MNEs should focus on when reporting social and economic information.

This study adds value to the existing literature on GRI-based social and economic reportings as well as the complementary nature of corporate governance, stakeholders and corporate legitimacy perspectives.

This study aims to explore the potential dynamics between performance measurement at the organisational level and emerging urban development projects at the macro-institutional field level of sustainability governance and accountability.

Using a theoretical triangulation between three theories, namely contingency theory, institutional theory and social cognitive theory, this study investigates not only the macro-micro dynamics, but also the (recursive) micro-macro dynamics between performance measurement and urban development. Using an Egyptian public sector urban development organisation and its sustainable energy project as an empirical example, interviews, documents and observations were collected.

The dynamics emerged between field urban development projects and the (unintended) organisational implementation of the performance measurement system, the sustainability key performance indicators (KPIs) reporting system. Contributing to previous literature, these dynamics have been institutionalised through (three) interrelated levels: the (macro-field) urban development contingencies and pressures for sustainability KPIs reporting, the (organisational) institutionalisation of the urban development performance measurement system and then the (micro-organisational) cognitive role of sustainability KPIs reports in (re)making political urban development decisions.

This study faced some limitations that paved the way for future research axes. For political and security reasons, difficulties were encountered in conducting interviews with government actors in the sustainable energy project under study. Also, due to the practical separation of the environmental sustainability system from the sustainability KPIs reporting system in this case study, environmental sustainability is outside the scope.

Sustainability reports may influence public sector decision-making processes in a specific urban development context. These KPIs reports may also increase public sector management opportunities for urban auditing, transparency, accountability and sustainability governance. These KPIs may also guide public sector management to lower prices in poor villages to increase smart energy consumption and improve community health.

Sustainability reports may increase decision-makers' understanding of consumer behaviours and societal changes. This may help in making appropriate political decisions to improve their welfare and regular smart energy consumption. Not only urban citizens, but this social advantage may also extend to urban development employees through employees' promotion, training and access to government-funded academic and professional scholarships.

This study is an attempt to develop current public sector performance measurement analyses in the emerging urban development field using a triadic analytical approach. This study also fed the literature with an extended case study that clarified the (multi-level) and (two-way) dynamics between performance measurement and urban development.

Businesses produce corporate sustainability information in support of the decision-making of their stakeholders through sustainability reporting. However, the use of such information has been limited because of the broadness of sustainability indicators used in sustainability reports. This study aims to identify sector-specific sustainability indicators and priorities based on the material issues of the logistics sector.

The authors conducted an exploratory study using 64 sustainability reports from the logistics sector. Qualitative content analysis was performed using Leximancer software to identify key themes and material concepts of sustainability reports.

The results showed that the most important indicators of the logistics sector are economic performance and energy, yet sustainability reports appear to focus more on reporting social sustainability information. Of the several sustainability measures, environmental and social factors dominated the reporting (8 economic, 62 environmental and 58 social). This discrepancy can also imply inconsistencies in sustainability reporting.

Identifying sector-specific indicators enables assessing the impact of sustainability issues on value creation and performance comparison among similar organizations. This is also beneficial in ensuring consistency of sustainability reporting, which is a prerequisite for policymaking in sustainable logistics.

Prior studies emphasized that no sector-specific sustainability indicators were established in the literature and standardized indicators are needed to ensure the comparability of results. This study addresses this gap by identifying sector-specific sustainability indicators based on the material issues of the logistics sector.

The purpose of this research is to determine firms' sustainability efforts through triple bottom line reporting on the World Wide Web. Sustainability reporting can assist in brand differentiation to stakeholder groups and ultimately lead to a positive corporate reputation.

Automated web content analysis was used to determine and differentiate 39 oil and gas firms' reporting of economic, social and environmental disclosures across Europe, North America and Asia. Firms were benchmarked for their disclosures against key terms derived from the Global Reporting Initiative.

North American firms disclose the greatest amount of TBL information for both environmental and economic indicators. European firms are the most prevalent reporters of social indicators. Asian firms displayed the most positive bias to their sustainability reporting.

Future research would benefit from linking firms' TBL reporting with firm performance as well as including a greater range of countries and industries for comparative purposes.

Firms should demonstrate a greater completeness of information across the three TBL indicators to effectively manage their relationships with their key stakeholders. Information should be unbiased and honest for firms to successfully legitimacy.

This paper uses automated content analyse to differentiate disclosure levels of TBL indicators across three different geographical regions.

The paper aims to contribute to the development of a systematic social disclosure rating system for analysing firms' social performance through their corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports or similar social disclosures. The rating incorporates the comprehensive Global Reporting Initiatives (GRI) 2002 reporting framework as the benchmark for measuring firm's social performance.

Literature review in the areas of CSR development, CSR reporting, CSR reporting frameworks, GRI 2002 Guidelines will be utilised in order to create social disclosures rating using GRI 2002 reporting framework.

The rating accommodates standardized measures of social performance based on the GRI 2002 Guidelines and enables comparison of CSR practices among companies, particularly firms' social accountability to society.

The contribution of the paper will fill the lack of standardized content analysis measures of CSR reports, particularly social aspects of CSR. It provides a comprehensive coverage of social indicators, which capture the wide range of issues in social theme of CSR.

That on accountability in public organizations is quite an old debate. Its introduction in judicial systems is, however, still viewed with some suspicion, due to its potential trade-off with independence and impartiality. Nevertheless, the need to respond to the demands for greater transparency and accountability has also pushed judicial organizations to establish a dialogue with a wide range of subjects. This study aims to explore the understanding and the current practices of sustainability reporting currently in place in judicial systems.

The study adopts a comparative approach, conducting an online survey in two European countries (Italy and Poland). The survey was built around the research questions and literature and administered between February and March 2020. Specifically, 804 courts were involved, of which 430 are in Italy and 374 in Poland.

Findings show that the current practices are still not widespread and there is still a lack of understanding of what sustainability reporting is, and therefore, of what its potential usefulness within the courts could be. Moreover, many differences between the two countries are pointed out, so it is possible to assume that the different cultural and institutional settings influence sustainability reporting practices. Finally, some interesting implications for policymakers are provided.

Judicial organizations are still poorly investigated in the literature, despite being at the center of a wide public and political debate. Moreover, the international comparative perspective adopted constitutes a further aspect of novelty.

This paper aims to investigate and compare the sustainability reporting practices of companies in the two most successful Western economies, the USA and the UK, as per Global reporting initiative framework.

Content analysis has been applied on a sample of 136 companies listed on the Stock Exchanges of the USA and the UK (USA – NASDAQ 100, 100 companies and Amex major market index, 20 companies; UK – FTSE 100, 100 companies). It uses descriptive statistics and independent sample t-test to identify significant comparisons.

The findings of the study suggest that the level of sustainability reporting is almost similar in the USA and the UK. It is somewhat low in both the countries. Overall mean disclosure score is 39.1 per cent in case of the USA followed by UK with 34.5 per cent. The result of independent sample t-test shows that these differences are not significant.

Sustenance is not a grave issue in both the USA and the UK. Thus, sustainability reporting is a voluntary practice in both these countries. Even then these countries are fostering in the field of sustenance and sensitizing the developing nations towards its need and relevance. The present study would provide developing countries a base and understanding of need based rules for moving on the path of sustenance.

The USA and the UK are the two most successful Western economies. However, not even a single study was found while reviewing the literature that studied and compared the sustainability reporting practices of these two leading developed countries.

Pressure from consumers and governments is mounting on organizations to account for their environmental and social activities in addition to financial performance. A draft set of guidelines from the Global Reporting Initiative forum proposes a framework for integrating environmental and social reporting into a sustainable approach to business.

Albeit gradual and uneven, the emergence of social and environmental reporting by publicly held corporations has been a major development in the last few decades. This paper aims to explore patterns of the emergence of these disclosures. Using an institutional theory lens, this paper considers mimetic, normative and coercive possibilities.

US publicly traded company data from 2013 to 2019 is used to test the hypotheses. Mimetic forces are proxied with corporate board interlock frequency. Normative ones use the extent of gender diversity on corporate boards. Measures of business climate and industry regulatory sensitivity proxy coercive potentiality.

Studied in isolation, each of the three forces through which organizations pursue the heightened legitimacy of enhanced environmental and social disclosures has credibility. The strongest support exists for mimetic and normative mechanisms, perhaps because the US government has been reluctant to make these expanded disclosures mandatory.

In the world of voluntary action, more attention to diffusion is needed. For these purposes, better proxies will be needed to study change. Social and environmental information should be separated for individual analysis.

At least in the USA, companies are attentive to what other companies are doing. There is something to be said for the ethical dimension of corporate transparency.

Governmental action in this area has not been effective, at current levels. Corporate leadership is essential. Critical information is shared about disclosure by board members.

Although institutional theory makes several appearances in this area, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, the current study is the first empirical archival study to examine the three forces simultaneously, providing evidence as to the relative magnitude of each institutional force on environmental and social disclosures. Should these disclosures not be mandated by government, this study shows pathways for enhanced disclosures to continue to spread.

The purpose of this research paper is to explore the understanding of sustainable development and sustainability reporting concepts among Malaysian local authorities' personnel.

The research involved interviews with 23 respondents from 16 selected councils in Malaysia. Interview results were analysed by using the interpretive textual analysis.

The meaning of the sustainable development concept is quite broad from the local authority's perspective in Malaysia. Local authorities' personnel view sustainable development as: societalist, ecologist and individualist. Only staff directly involved in the sustainable development activity implementation understood the meaning of the sustainable development concept. The respondents indicated the importance of educating people on the awareness of sustainable development in their understanding on this concept. Consistent with the western values, 13 councils (81 per cent) agreed with the definition by GRI.

The research is restricted to Malaysian local authorities and is descriptive in nature. The findings are limited to case studies in several states, thus generalizing the results is not possible at this stage.

There is a deeper appreciation of where local authority personnel gain their understanding of sustainable development issues, and how they participate in the discourse around sustainable development.

Very little research has been undertaken into how local authority personnel gain their knowledge, either about sustainable development and sustainability reporting or about their views on the subject. The research attempts to fill this gap and the way for similar work to be undertaken overseas. Accordingly, this paper calls for further discussion on local authorities' role in achieving sustainable development and on the public sector interpretation of sustainable development in general.