Applying legitimacy theory to understand sustainability reporting behaviour within South African integrated reports

Shelly Herbert and Mark Graham

South African Journal of Accounting Research, 2022, vol. 36, issue 2, 147-169

Abstract: Sustainability disclosures are frequently included within integrated reports, in order to provide disclosures relating to the capitals identified in the International Framework (the Framework). South Africa has been at the forefront of integrated reporting, following the guidance of King III and subsequently the Framework. This study draws on data previously presented by the authors, and identifies the relationships and correlation between the application of principles from the Framework, such as materiality and conciseness, as well as the total number of sustainability disclosures and the industry classification, age and size of the companies, through the lens of legitimacy theory. The study uses data collected through interpretive content analysis of the integrated reports of South African companies in 2011 and 2015, as well as company metrics, which are analysed using Spearman’s rank correlation and a k-means cluster analysis. The results reveal that companies tend to consistently apply the principles from the Framework, and the size of the company was not consistently correlated. However, the age of the company was correlated to the materiality of disclosures provided. The findings are consistent with legitimacy theory and add to the legitimacy theory literature by identifying the sustainability reporting behaviour displayed by companies of various sizes, ages and industry classifications.

Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/10291954.2021.1918481 (text/html)
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:taf:rsarxx:v:36:y:2022:i:2:p:147-169

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/rsar20

DOI: 10.1080/10291954.2021.1918481

Access Statistics for this article

South African Journal of Accounting Research is currently edited by Soon Nel

More articles in South African Journal of Accounting Research from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().