Formal and informal sustainability reporting: an insight from a mining company’s subsidiary in Ghana

Kwame Oduro Amoako, Isaac Oduro Amoako, James Tuffour and Emmanuel Opoku Marfo

Journal of Financial Reporting and Accounting, 2021, vol. 20, issue 5, 897-925

Abstract: Purpose - Using a subsidiary of a multinational mining company in Ghana as a case, the purpose of this study is to examine the formal and informal forms and channels of sustainability reporting in the emerging economy’s context. Design/methodology/approach - Semi-structured interviews were conducted amongst managers and employees of the mining company and members of their host community. Based on the interview themes, archival data were extracted from the 2020 Integrated Annual Report of the case company to corroborate the results from the interviews. Findings - The authors found that most of the stakeholders from the host community interviewed were not aware and, to an extent, not interested in formal sustainability reports. In place of that, the management of the mining subsidiary uses informal channels of communication, including meetings and durbars, to verbally engage the local community and their representatives on sustainability matters. Whilst the formal sustainability reports met the internal requirements set by the parent company, the informal engagements were critical for gaining external legitimacy from the host community and other interest groups. Hence, the authors argue that mining companies and their subsidiaries, particularly in developing economies, need to consider informal forms of sustainability reporting alongside the formal channels to engage local communities to address sustainability issues and avert disruptions to their operations. Originality/value - Sustainability reporting studies have focussed mainly on annual reports published in print or corporate websites, ignoring informal forms of sustainability reporting. This study sheds light on the informal forms of sustainability reporting. This is important as formal forms of sustainability reporting may be less useful for engaging local mining communities in developing economy contexts.

Keywords: Mining-industry; Forms; Sustainability reporting; Channels; Ghana (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

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:jfrapp:jfra-12-2020-0368

DOI: 10.1108/JFRA-12-2020-0368

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Financial Reporting and Accounting is currently edited by Prof. Aziz Jaafar and Prof Khaled Hussainey

More articles in Journal of Financial Reporting and Accounting from Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Emerald Support ().