Stakeholder engagement in sustainability reporting by Fortune Global 500 companies: a call for embeddedness

Putu Agus Ardiana

Meditari Accountancy Research, 2021, vol. 31, issue 2, 344-365

Abstract: Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to ascertain whether Fortune Global 500 companies embed stakeholder engagement in their sustainability reporting. Design/methodology/approach - Quantitative and qualitative content analyses were undertaken on 646 sustainability reports written in English over the period from 2015 to 2017. Findings - This research found a low level of stakeholder engagement disclosures and scant evidence that sustainability disclosures were drawn upon stakeholder engagement practices. The findings indicate that stakeholder engagement was loosely embedded in sustainability reporting. Research limitations/implications - Sustainability reports are the sole unit of analysis. Besides, this research is limited to a sample of companies and to a specific period, which limits the generalisation of the research findings. Practical implications - Embedding stakeholder engagement in sustainability reporting holds companies accountable to their stakeholders. This is because the companies’ sustainability disclosures acknowledge the stakeholders’ concerns and information about the stakeholder engagement methods deployed to address those concerns. Social implications - Stakeholder engagement promotes accountability by encouraging stakeholders to convey their opinions about corporate sustainability, participate in decision-making processes that impact them, and partake in defining the contents of sustainability reports. Originality/value - This paper provides insights into the need to link sustainability disclosures with stakeholder engagement disclosures, by articulating who the relevant stakeholders are and how they are engaged on the various sustainability topics – rather than conceiving them to be separate and independent disclosures in a sustainability report.

Keywords: Embeddedness; Stakeholder engagement; Sustainability reporting; Fortune Global 500; Content analysis (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:medarp:medar-12-2019-0666

DOI: 10.1108/MEDAR-12-2019-0666

Access Statistics for this article

Meditari Accountancy Research is currently edited by Prof Charl de Villiers and Warren Maroun

More articles in Meditari Accountancy Research from Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Emerald Support ().