Sustainability Reporting in the Mining Sector: Exploring Its Symbolic Nature

Böhling, Kathrin; Murguía, Diego I.; Godfrid, Julieta

doi:10.1177/0007650317703658

Cited by 48 publications

(62 citation statements)

References 55 publications

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“…However, their activities have frequently been associated with the effects of extraction of natural resources, creating legacies of unacceptable long-term social and environmental impacts in many parts of the world (Moran et al, 2014). Nonetheless, over recent decades, the number of mining corporations sharing details on their sustainability initiatives in publicly available reports has grown rapidly (Böhling et al, 2017).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Challenges and pathways for Brazilian mining sustainability

2021

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Brazil is one of the world key players in the mining industry. This sector has also a remarkable role on the Brazilian economic and social development. Nonetheless, the economic, social and environmental impacts of the sector have not yet been fully documented, debated or understood in reports presented by companies and public organizations in the country. In this context, this research aims to contribute to this debate by analysing sustainability in the Brazilian mining sector. For this research, the approach has used mostly a qualitative method, interviews, coupled with content analysis of reports of public mining agencies. Results showed that sustainability assessment and communication is still an emergent process in Brazilian mining, since only a few large companies have been reporting their sustainability initiatives. The results provide also evidence of the existing gap between large and small companies, with the latter showing lower levels of awareness of the impact of their activities. Based on these findings, this research has concluded on the need for closer cooperation between government, public mining agencies and companies to raise levels of knowledge and awareness within companies, towards sustainability practices and communication initiatives.

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Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Challenges and pathways for Brazilian mining sustainability

2021

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“…The majority of research in sustainability reporting has focused on the private sector and it has been receiving increasing amounts of attention [18][19][20][21][22][23][24]. Only in recent years has an increased interest on this topic gained traction in the public sector [25][26][27][28].…”

Section: Literature Review and Theoretical Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Overcoming the Barriers to the Diffusion of Sustainability Reporting in Italian LGOs: Better Stick or Carrot?

et al. 2018

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Abstract:The role of public-sector organizations (PSOs) in promoting the agenda of sustainability accounting and accountability is not often adequately considered. In the public sector realm, local governments are close to their communities and thus have a particularly important role to play in the pursuit of sustainability goals. Hence, further research is needed to understand if Local Government Organizations (LGOs) are using reporting tools to promote sustainable development. The empirical data showed that the Sustainability Report (SR) is not being as widely used as in past years. Over time, the majority of Italian municipalities have not initiated or continued sustainability reporting due to some barriers including cost reduction, voluntariness, and low SR effectiveness. The findings suggest the popularity of SRs in Italy is falling and the SR tool appears to be "mere trend reporting based on descriptive indicators leading to decreasing interest from internal and external audiences". The carrot has been unsuccessful. Perhaps the implementation of mandatory requirements could alternatively be used as a stick.

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“…Because tensions between funder/stakeholder demands and enterprise resources exist nearly universally, several literatures already address potential responses to this tension: for example, coupling/decoupling (Boxenbaum and Jonsson, 2008; Dick and Coule, 2017; Pache and Santos, 2013), avoidance and defiance (Greenwood et al ., 2011; Oliver, 1991), bricolage (Molecke and Pinkse, 2017) and impression management and symbolic compliance (Böhling, Murguía and Godfrid, 2017; Bolino, Long and Turnley, 2016; Power, 1997, 2003; Zott and Huy, 2007). However, symbolic compliance and impression management are less well researched in the context of social enterprises, particularly nascent ones (MacLean and Behnam, 2010; Molecke and Pache, 2019; Rawhouser, Cummings and Newbert, 2019).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Justifying Social Impact as a Form of Impression Management: Legitimacy Judgements of Social Enterprises’ Impact Accounts

Molecke

Pinkse

2020

British J of Management

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This paper investigates how social enterprises construct accounts to gain legitimacy from the social impact generated by their products and operations. The paper finds that social impact accounts are framed to appeal to two distinct forms of judgement about legitimacy: cognitive and evaluative. Cognitive forms of judgement qualify how well an enterprise shares attributes with an individual's schemas of established actors or roles in society. Evaluative forms of judgement tend to operate more analytically to make comparisons of the relative appropriateness and desirability of multiple enterprises to achieve an audience's goals. The findings show that although legitimizing the social aspects of an enterprise involved justifications aimed at both forms of judgement, legitimizing an enterprise's professionalism relied almost exclusively on evaluative judgements. Moreover, the justifications created to appeal to evaluative judgements relied almost exclusively on financial and operational data, using operational scale as a proxy.

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Sustainability Reporting in the Mining Sector: Exploring Its Symbolic Nature

Cited by 48 publications

References 55 publications

Challenges and pathways for Brazilian mining sustainability

Challenges and pathways for Brazilian mining sustainability

Overcoming the Barriers to the Diffusion of Sustainability Reporting in Italian LGOs: Better Stick or Carrot?

Justifying Social Impact as a Form of Impression Management: Legitimacy Judgements of Social Enterprises’ Impact Accounts

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