Reporting on sustainability by Australian councils – a communication perspective

Belinda Rachael Williams

Asian Review of Accounting, 2015, vol. 23, issue 2, 186-203

Abstract: Purpose - – The purpose of this paper is to provide an understanding of the role of communication in the sustainability reporting process within Australian local councils. The study focuses on three areas; understanding and awareness levels of local councils towards sustainability, sustainability reporting methods and the importance of community engagement. Design/methodology/approach - – A qualitative semi-structured interview approach was adopted for this investigation. In total, 18 semi-structured interviews were conducted with senior managers across 13 local councils. Findings - – Findings indicate that sustainability reporting is very much an emerging field in local government in Australia with varying levels of understanding and awareness of sustainability amongst councils. A lack of consistency in the current communication message being produced was found along with a lack of community engagement by most councils in the reporting process. Without clarity in the communication process, sustainability reporting in the local government context will continue to falter without a clear focus. Practical implications - – The paper suggests the need for the local government sector to carefully consider the role of communication in an effort to provide direction on how best to discharge their sustainability accountabilities. Originality/value - – Little attention has been given to the role of communication in accounting. The findings contribute to an understanding surrounding communication process issues in an effort to advance the sustainability reporting agenda within local government.

Keywords: Communication; Public sector; Local government; Sustainability reporting; Local council (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (text/html)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eme:arapps:v:23:y:2015:i:2:p:186-203

DOI: 10.1108/ARA-12-2013-0079

Access Statistics for this article

Asian Review of Accounting is currently edited by Prof. Haiyan Zhou

More articles in Asian Review of Accounting from Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Emerald Support ().