Determinants of sustainability reporting: A systematic literature review

Abstract

Sustainability reporting has been widely acknowledged as a crucial corporate sustainability practice and recently received increasing attention from regulators, standard‐setters, practitioners, and researchers. Motivated by the abundance of work, and the variety of theoretical perspectives and existing evidence, this paper explores how the research on sustainability reporting determinants has developed over time and what is known and not known about this topic. To address this question, we conducted a systematic literature review of articles on sustainability reporting determinants published in ABS‐ranked journals between 2002 and 2021. Building on Lozano et al. (2015) framework of corporate sustainability theories, our findings provide an updated overview of factors driving sustainability reporting and the determinants still under debate. Furthermore, to fill existing gaps and inspire future research developments, findings suggest further work focus on non‐listed companies, environmentally sensitive industries, underexplored geographical areas, and qualitative methods. Finally, the paper has implications for managers and policymakers.