Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
  • Publication
    Reporting controversial issues in controversial industries
    Purpose: This article explores how companies in multiple controversial industries report their controversial issues. For the first time, the authors use a new conceptualization of controversial industries, focused on harm and solutions, to investigate the reports of 28 companies in seven controversial industries: Agricultural Chemicals, Alcohol, Armaments, Coal, Gambling, Oil and Tobacco. Design/methodology/approach: The authors thematically analyzed company reports to determine if companies in controversial industries discuss their controversial issues in their reporting, if and how they communicate the harm caused by their products or services, and what solutions they provide. Findings: From this study data the authors introduce a new legitimacy reporting method in the controversial industries literature: the solutions companies offer for the harm caused by their products and services. The authors find three solution reporting methods: no solution, misleading solution and less-harmful solution. The authors also develop a new typology of reporting strategies used by companies in controversial industries based on how they report their key controversial issue and the harm caused by their products or services, and the solutions they offer. The authors identify seven reporting strategies: Ignore, Deny, Decoy, Dazzle, Distort, Deflect and Adapt. Research limitations/implications: Further research can test the typology and identify strategies used by companies in different institutional or regulatory settings, across different controversial industries or in larger populations. Practical implications: Investors, consumers, managers, activists and other stakeholders of controversial companies can use this typology to identify the strategies that companies use to report controversial issues. They can assess if reports admit to the controversial issue and the harm caused by a company's products and services and if they provide solutions to that harm. Originality/value: This paper develops a new typology of reporting strategies by companies in controversial industries and adds to the theory and discourse on social and environmental reporting (SER) as well as the literature on controversial industries.
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  • Publication
    Sustainability Accounting and Reporting at a Sector Level: Mapping the Terrain
    (Orpen Press, 2017-12-31) ;
    The aim of this paper is to develop our understanding of accounting and reporting for sustainability at a sector level, an area where there is a significant deficit of literature. As sustainability is a system-based concept, there is a growing recognition that sustainability reporting needs to move beyond single-entity reports towards multiple organisation reporting, such as industry, supply chain and sector-level reports. However, few studies have explored the challenges and possibilities of multiple organisation reporting, and no established sector-level reporting guidelines exist. This study advances the sustainability accounting literature by mapping the field of multiple organisation sustainability reporting, drawing together any existing literature and reviewing emerging voluntary reporting mechanisms. We identify different levels of sustainability parameters and reporting: global, national, sectoral, organisational and product. We then evaluate emerging reporting frameworks at a sectoral level, with reference to the agri-food sector, an industry with significant ecological impacts. We review these frameworks, along with a practitioner example of sustainability reporting at a sectoral level in the form of Bord Bia’s Origin Green programme, in the context of global sustainability parameters, namely planetary boundaries and the Sustainable Development Goals. In doing so we identify a lack of coherent linkages among these global parameters of sustainability and emerging reporting frameworks and reporting. We suggest directions for future research by which these gaps may be addressed.
      308
  • Publication
    Are you ready for the sustainable, biocircular economy?
    With the effects of the climate crisis becoming more extreme, and in view of the urgent need to achieve sustainable development goals, managers, companies, and entire industries must embrace the sustainable, biocircular economy, enabling all stakeholders as well as our planet to thrive in this inevitable future. This article clarifies the emerging concept of sustainable biocircularity by showcasing best-practice applications, with examples from policymakers, civil society organizations (CSOs), companies, and others working together to bring vital transformational change. We present five guiding EARTH principles (ecology, authenticity, resilience, transformation, and holism) to help ensure the transition to a sustainable, biocircular economy benefits organizations and society at minimal cost to the environment. We next introduce the five stages required to develop a successful transition to sustainable biocircularity. Here we highlight how an integrated, systems-based STOP (skills, technologies, opportunities, and problems) road map can enable organizations to conduct strategic analysis and decision-making across each of the five stages, thus helping to achieve that transition. We demonstrate how the guiding principles, the five stages, and the road map are intertwined and stress that companies must understand and embrace each of these in order to thrive in this new environment. Finally, we provide a biowashing checklist to help ensure this transition is truly sustainable, just, and authentic.
    Scopus© Citations 4  20
  • Publication
    Taking sustainability reporting to the next level
    (Chartered Accountants Ireland, 2017-10-03) ;
    Social and environmental accounting – and more recently, sustainability accounting – is a well-established concept with an increasing number of organisations, including Irish companies such as CRH, Smurfit Kappa and Greencore, publishing a sustainability report alongside their annual report. There is also a growing level of interest in extending sustainability reporting beyond individual companies to a sector or industry level (i.e. multiple organisations reporting). Given that sustainability often involves complex global issues which require collaboration between companies and engagement with a variety of stakeholders, reporting in this way is potentially more appropriate and useful than single company reporting.
      270
  • Publication
    Framing innovation success, failure, and transformation: A systematic literature review
    Framing is a powerful tool shaping innovation success, failure, and transformation. However, innovation framing is not recognized as a unified domain of research and the extant literature is theoretically fragmented across diverse fields. Inconsistencies in definition and operationalization of constructs stall theoretical advancement of innovation framing theory and practice. Importantly, an understanding of the underlying mechanisms enabling framing to mediate innovation outcomes has been missing. Using a systematic literature review (SLR), we integrate diverse theoretical perspectives. Stemming from this, we develop a unified conceptual framework of innovation framing. In so doing we make three vital contributions to the field. First, we develop a typology of construct categories of innovation framing, defining these framing concepts and identifying their theoretical basis. Next, we emphasize the importance of key mechanisms (sensemaking, interpretive flexibility, consensus) in explaining innovation outcomes. Our third contribution identifies innovation stage-specific differences in the role of framing processes, frame types and characteristics, and the temporal elements of these. Finally, we discuss the implications of our research for innovation practitioners, while concluding with a detailed agenda for future innovation framing research.
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