Maria Da Conceição Da Costa Tavares

By Maria da Conceição da Costa Tavares

Issues such as social responsibility and corporate sustainability are now recognized by organizations and the community as very important to achieve sustainable development (SD). Given the increasing pressure from multi-stakeholders, organizations seek to disclose their “best practices” toward SD through a sustainability reporting tool that is prepared on a voluntary basis. Global reporting initiative (GRI) sustainability reports of the Portuguese public sector (PS) entities are used to perform a quantitative longitudinal study with the purpose of identifying the indicators currently disclosed and the GRI application levels. The study focused on the reports of 2008 and 2012. The findings show that Portuguese PS entities report mainly economic indicators, followed by social indicators. Despite the low level of external verification, entities are transparent when declaring their GRI application level.

Part of the book: Digital Communication Management

By Maria da Conceição da Costa Tavares and Alcina Portugal Dias

This study analyzes the perspectives of the institutional theory, the legitimacy theory, and the stakeholders’ theory in the accounting changing process and sustainability reports. The objective is to explore how these theories are used in corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure. Through this analysis, it is provided a better theoretical understanding of these theories, which support and promote research on accounting and sustainability reporting. This chapter analyzes each theory and the relationship between them. We conclude that, although the legitimacy theory is the dominant theory used in accounting and sustainability reporting studies, it is related to the other theories. The selection and application will depend on the study focus.

Part of the book: Accounting from a Cross-Cultural Perspective