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The purpose of this paper is to investigate current practices of water governance disclosure in the food, beverage and tobacco industry and to determine whether the quality of…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate current practices of water governance disclosure in the food, beverage and tobacco industry and to determine whether the quality of disclosure has a positive association with integrated reporting (IR).
Design/methodology/approach
A water governance disclosure index was developed that used content analysis to code the latest standalone social, environmental and sustainability reports or integrated reports of 49 companies in the food, beverage and tobacco industry. The selected companies are listed on three indices, the ASX, JSE and DJSI. This was followed by quantitatively testing the association between IR and the quality of water governance disclosure, as measured against the qualitatively developed index.
Findings
It was found that the 18 IR companies’ water governance disclosure quality significantly outperformed the 31 companies in the non-IR group, with a calculated index score of 71.67% and 40.97%, respectively.
Research limitations/implications
The evidence indicates that IR is superior to non-IR water governance disclosure, and the study, therefore, contributes to the literature around the legitimacy theory by concluding that IR is supportive to companies to legitimise their being.
Originality/value
The originality of this paper stems from the comparison of water governance disclosures between IR and non-IR firms. Considering that IR preparers outperformed companies in the non-IR group could provide insights to academics, regulators and reporting organisations that IR could be used to enhance water governance disclosure.
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Chengyun Liu, Kun Su and Miaomiao Zhang
This study aims to examine whether and how gender diversity on corporate boards is associated with voluntary nonfinancial disclosures, particularly water disclosures.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to examine whether and how gender diversity on corporate boards is associated with voluntary nonfinancial disclosures, particularly water disclosures.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses corporate water information disclosure data from Chinese listed firms between 2010 and 2018 to conduct regression analyses to examine the association between female directors and water information disclosure.
Findings
Empirical results show that female directors have a significantly positive association with corporate water information disclosure. Additionally, internal industry water sensitivity of firms moderates this significant relationship.
Originality/value
This study determined that female directors can promote not only water disclosure but also positive corporate water performance, reflecting the consistency of words and deeds of female directors in voluntary nonfinancial disclosures.
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Laura Rocca, Davide Giacomini and Paola Zola
Because of the expansion of the internet and Web 2.0 phenomenon, new challenges are emerging in the disclosure practises adopted by organisations in the public-sector. This study…
Abstract
Purpose
Because of the expansion of the internet and Web 2.0 phenomenon, new challenges are emerging in the disclosure practises adopted by organisations in the public-sector. This study aims to examine local governments’ (LGOs) use of social media (SM) in disclosing environmental actions/plans/information as a new way to improve accountability to citizens to obtain organisational legitimacy and the related sentiment of citizens’ judgements.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper analyses the content of 39 Italian LGOs’ public pages on Facebook. After the distinction between five classes of environmental issues (air, water, energy, waste and territory), an initial study is performed to detect possible sub-topics applying latent Dirichlet allocation. Having a list of posts related to specific environmental themes, the researchers computed the sentiment of citizens’ comments. To measure sentiment, two different approaches were implemented: one based on a lexicon dictionary and the other based on convolutional neural networks.
Findings
Facebook is used by LGOs to disclose environmental issues, focussing on their main interest in obtaining organisational legitimacy, and the analysis shows an increasing impact of Web 2.0 in the direct interaction of LGOs with citizens. On the other hand, there is a clear divergence of interest on environmental topics between LGOs and citizens in a dialogic accountability framework.
Practical implications
Sentiment analysis (SA) could be used by politicians, but also by managers/entrepreneurs in the business sector, to analyse stakeholders’ judgements of their communications/actions and plans on corporate social responsibility. This tool gives a result on time (i.e. not months or years after, as for the reporting system). It is cheaper than a survey and allows a first “photograph” of stakeholders’ sentiment. It can also be a useful tool for supporting, developing and improving environmental reporting.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is one of the first to apply SA to environmental disclosure via SM in the public sphere. The study links modern techniques in natural language processing and machine learning with the important aspects of environmental communication between LGOs and citizens.
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Blerita Korca, Ericka Costa and Lies Bouten
As the comparability concept has recently garnered increased attention of policymakers and standard setters in the sustainability reporting (SR) arena, this paper aims to provide…
Abstract
Purpose
As the comparability concept has recently garnered increased attention of policymakers and standard setters in the sustainability reporting (SR) arena, this paper aims to provide a reflexive viewpoint of this concept in this context.
Design/methodology/approach
To inform the authors’ viewpoint and disentangle the concept of comparability into different facets, the authors review policymakers’ and standard setters’ (including the Global reporting initiative) comparability principles, as well as relevant studies in the field. To provide insights into the different ways in which the comparability facets can be approached, the authors use multi-perspective reflexive practices and focus on the multiple purposes that reporting can serve. To empirically animate the authors’ reflection on the facets, the authors analyse the sustainability disclosures of two Italian banks over three years.
Findings
This study reveals that three facets form valuable starting points for extending the understanding of the meanings the comparability concept can carry in the SR arena. These facets are materiality and comparability, benchmarking/monitoring and comparability and operationalisation and comparability.
Practical implications
This study is intended to elicit policymakers’ and standard setters’ thoughts on the role of comparability and its complexities in SR.
Social implications
By taking a critical and reflexive approach, the authors encourage policymakers and standard setters to reconsider the comparability principle, so it effectively embeds the accountability purpose of SR.
Originality/value
In this paper, the authors propose three facets for disentangling the concept of comparability.
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James Guthrie, Francesca Manes Rossi, Rebecca Levy Orelli and Giuseppe Nicolò
The paper identifies the types of risks disclosed by Italian organisations using integrated reporting (IR). This paper aims to understand the level and features of risk disclosure…
Abstract
Purpose
The paper identifies the types of risks disclosed by Italian organisations using integrated reporting (IR). This paper aims to understand the level and features of risk disclosure with the adoption of IR.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors use risk classifications already provided in the literature to develop a content analysis of Italian organisations’ integrated reports published.
Findings
The content analysis reveals that most of the Italian organisations incorporate many types of risk disclosure into their integrated reports. Organisations use this alternative form of reporting to communicate risk differently from how they disclose risks in traditional annual financial reporting. That is, the study finds that the organisations use their integrated reports to disclose a broader group of risks, related to the environment and society, and do so using narrative and visual representation.
Originality/value
The paper contributes to a narrow stream of research investigating risk disclosure provided through IR, contributing to the understanding of the role of IR in representing an organisational risk.
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Giacomo Pigatto, Lino Cinquini, John Dumay and Andrea Tenucci
This study aims to provide a critical assessment of developments in the field of voluntary corporate non-financial and sustainability reporting and disclosure (VRD). The…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to provide a critical assessment of developments in the field of voluntary corporate non-financial and sustainability reporting and disclosure (VRD). The assessment is grounded in the empirical material of a three-year research project on integrated reporting (IR).
Design/methodology/approach
Alvesson and Deetz’s (2021) critical management framework structures the arguments in this paper. By investigating local phenomena and the extant literature, the authors glean insights that they later critique, drawing on the empirical evidence collected during the research project. Transformative redefinitions are then proposed that point to future opportunities for research on voluntary organisational disclosures.
Findings
The authors argue that the mainstream approaches to VRD, namely, incremental information and legitimacy theories, present shortcomings in addressing why and how organisations voluntarily disclose information. First, the authors find that companies adopting the International IR Council’s (IIRC, 2021) IR framework tend to comply with the framework only in an informal, rather than a substantial way. Second, the authors find that, at times, organisations serendipitously chance upon VRD practices such as IR instead of rationally recognising the potential ability of such practices to provide useful information for decision-making by investors. Also, powerful groups in organisations may use VRD practices to establish, maintain or restore power balances in their favour.
Research limitations/implications
The paper’s limitations stem directly from its aim to be a critical reflection. Even when grounded on empirics, a reflection is mainly a subjective effort. Therefore, different researchers could come to different conclusions and offer different lessons from the two case studies.
Practical implications
The different rationales the authors found for VRD should make a case for reporting institutions to tone down any investor-centric rhetoric in favour of more substantial disclosures. The findings imply that reporting organisations should approach the different frameworks with a critical eye and read between the lines of these frameworks to determine whether the purported normative arguments are achievable practice.
Originality/value
The authors reflect on timely and relevant issues linked to recent developments in the VRD landscape. Further, the authors offer possible ways forward for critical research that may rely on different methodological choices, such as interventionist and post-structuralist research.
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