Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the enabling role of accounting and reporting practices as discourses about sustainability unfold inside organizations. In particular, the authors investigate how managers attempt to connect the concept of “sustainability” to their specific experience, as they seek to make sustainability meaningful (i.e. filling it with unfolding meaning) through accounting and within particular discursive spaces. Design/methodology/approach The authors rely upon the case of LOGIC, a large international oil and gas company operating in more than 70 countries worldwide. The authors analyze the evolution of discourses concerning sustainability inside the company, as well as the changing accounting and reporting practices, with a particular focus on integrated reporting. Findings The authors show that accounting and reporting practices (such as integrated reporting within LOGIC) provide the conditions for “sustainability”—as a discursive concept—to become meaningful, while evolving themselves as they are attached to this concept. They do so by enabling individuals (the management team within LOGIC) to connect their diverse experiences and aspirations to the concept of sustainability. Rather than filling sustainability with stable meaning, the authors observed that individuals are attracted by the gaps left by accounting representations, leading to the development of new practices and unfolding meanings within specific discursive spaces. Originality/value Most of the literature on sustainability accounting and reporting practices concentrate on the need for these practices to mirror what companies do about sustainability. Differently, the authors add to the very few studies on “aspirational” reporting that have emphasized the enabling effects of the gap between what companies say and do about sustainability. The authors do so by demonstrating that accounting is “aspirational” not only because it stimulates corporate efforts toward an imaginary better future, but also because it attracts managers’ particular aspirations through its representational gap. The authors show that this gap enables meaningful connections between individuals (their particular experience and aspirations) and “sustainability,” bringing this concept into their specific discursive space and, thereby, leading to the emergence of new practices.

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Purpose This study aims to develop a framework to systematize the emerging literature on integrated thinking and offers empirical insights on how integrated thinking has been practiced within an organization. The paper also introduces the contributions that compose the special issue “exploring integrated thinking in action: theoretical interpretations and evidence from the field” and outlines avenues for future research. Design/methodology/approach The paper critically reviews the literature on integrated thinking and proposes a framework that classifies prior studies into three areas, namely, integrated thinking and sustainable strategies; integrating thinking in practice; the concept and measures of integrated thinking. The study also provides an illustration of the ways in which integrated thinking has been adopted by a European energy company to shape and execute its purpose-driven strategy, as well as the benefits that have emerged. The paper uses the framework developed from the literature to introduce the contributions of the special issue and to suggest future research opportunities. Findings The study shows that while the literature on integrated thinking is still in its infancy, the evidence emerging from contemporary organizations supports empirical-driven research and stimulates a variety of theoretical and empirical contributions that will enable the academic debate to move forward. Originality/value The theoretical and practical insights offered by this study, together with those provided by the papers of this Meditari Accountancy Research special issue, will foster future research on integrated thinking. In particular, the framework developed in this paper may be drawn upon by researchers to plan new research projects on integrated thinking and its adoption within organizations.

A worldwide debate on the effectiveness of business reporting information has engaged organizations, policy makers, regulators, and members of the capital market. The documents through which organizations disclose their annual performance are being questioned and criticized, as they appear inadequate for responding to stakeholder needs. In 2013, the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) launched a project with the aim of redesigning corporate reporting processes and outputs, introducing integrated reporting (IR). At the center of IR are the six capitals defined by the IIRC representing the basis for an innovative form of evaluating and presenting performance. New topics on the global sustainable development agenda are growing in importance, requiring companies to enrich their disclosure and connect business to environment. In this study, we examined how a group of leaders in IR, 134 European companies from the IIRC IR reporters list, are currently disclosing IR capital and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), developing three evaluation scores: Capital Disclosure Index, SDG Disclosure Index, and SDG Compliance Index.

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