IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eme/sampjp/sampj-07-2021-0292.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Strategic responses to sustainability reporting regulation and multiple stakeholder demands: an analysis of the Spanish EU non-financial reporting directive transposition

Author

Listed:
  • Rosa Esteban-Arrea
  • Nicolas Garcia-Torea

Abstract

Purpose - This paper aims to study companies’ strategic responses to regulative institutional pressures on sustainability reporting. Particularly, it investigates the role of multiple stakeholder demands in shaping corporate responses to Law 11/2018 that transposes the EU Non-Financial Reporting Directive in Spain. Design/methodology/approach - Informed by Oliver’s framework, the study analyzes the 2018 non-financial information of Spanish listed companies mandated to report under Law 11/2018 to explore the relationship between adopting a particular strategic response and companies’ stakeholder configuration. Findings - Companies facing multiple stakeholder pressures tend to use a compromise strategy favoring the disclosure of relevant topics to a specific stakeholder type. Specifically, environmentalists are the most influential stakeholder in determining the coverage of sustainability topics to the detriment of other stakeholders when companies suffer from regulatory pressures. Research limitations/implications - The study contributes to disentangling the factors determining how companies respond to sustainability reporting regulation. Future research could perform longitudinal and large multinational analyses to study the evolutionary process of corporate responses. Practical implications - The study is relevant to managers and policymakers as it highlights that sustainability reporting regulation should promote the coverage of relevant topics to less influential stakeholders. Social implications - The study explores the extent to which current sustainability reporting regulation can increase transparency on sustainability issues for all stakeholders. Originality/value - In contrast to previous literature exploring the extent to which firms comply with regulation, the study considers that companies can respond more actively to mandatory sustainability reporting requirements.

Suggested Citation

  • Rosa Esteban-Arrea & Nicolas Garcia-Torea, 2022. "Strategic responses to sustainability reporting regulation and multiple stakeholder demands: an analysis of the Spanish EU non-financial reporting directive transposition," Sustainability Accounting, Management and Policy Journal, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 13(3), pages 600-625, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:eme:sampjp:sampj-07-2021-0292
    DOI: 10.1108/SAMPJ-07-2021-0292
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/SAMPJ-07-2021-0292/full/html?utm_source=repec&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=repec
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers
    File URL: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/SAMPJ-07-2021-0292/full/pdf?utm_source=repec&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=repec
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1108/SAMPJ-07-2021-0292?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Anguiano-Santos, Carlos & Salazar-Ordóñez, Melania & Tornel-Vázquez, Rossana & Rodríguez-Entrena, Macario, 2024. "Sustainability reporting harmonisation? A utopian endeavour for European agri-food companies," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 354-368.
    2. repec:ehu:cuader:64023 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Igor Álvarez-Etxeberria & Miguel Marco-Fondevila & Constancio Zamora-Ramírez, 2023. "Non-Financial Disclosure: Isomorphism Effect in the Face of New Regulation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(11), pages 1-22, May.
    4. Rogerson, Michael & Scarpa, Francesco & Snelson-Powell, Annie, 2024. "Accounting for human rights: Evidence of due diligence in EU-listed firms’ reporting," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eme:sampjp:sampj-07-2021-0292. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Emerald Support (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.