Sustainability reporting as negotiated storytelling

• Sustainablity reporting (SR) is an established phenomenon in business. Despite this fact, there is relatively limited knowledge on the nature of the process of generating structured SR information. This paper shows how accounting information materializes and takes shape in a SR.  By relying on a storytelling approach and a qualitative case study of a large Swedish retailer, the article demonstrates how a SR process is characterized by ‘negotiations’ between internal constituents as to defining the ‘best’ story of the corporation’s sustainability impact. It is argued that such an approach better captures the nature of a SR process compared to rationalistic control-oriented or legitimacy-seeking ‘window-dressing’ characterizations of the SR process. Understanding the SR process as characterized by negotiated storytelling implies recognizing different factors as relevant to the outcome of a SR process. Such factors include the existence of competing motives based on different master-ideas, path dependency, competence issues and actorhood specificities and preferences.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Ekonomi och näringsliv -- Företagsekonomi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Economics and Business -- Business Administration (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Accounting

Corporate social responsibility

Negotiation

Storytelling

Sustainability reporting

Business Studies

Företagsekonomi

Publikations- och innehållstyp

vet (ämneskategori)

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