Center for Advancing Accounting

Show Me? Inspire Me? Make Me? An Institutional Theory Exploration of Social and Environmental Reporting Practices

• In Event: Sustainability Rerporting

Abstract

Albeit gradual and uneven, the emergence of social and environmental reporting by publicly held corporations has been a major development in the last few decades. This paper explores patterns for the emergence of these disclosures. Using an institutional theory lens, this paper considers mimetic, normative and coercive possibilities. US publicly traded company data from 2013 to 2019 is used to test the hypotheses. The results find strongest support for mimetic and normative mechanisms and the least support for a coercive one.

Authors

• Jacqueline Jarosz Wukich, Case Western Reserve University

• Timothy J. Fogarty, Case Western Reserve University

• Erica Neuman, The University of Dayton