Understanding Communication of Sustainability Reporting: Application of Symbolic Convergence Theory (SCT)

Hossain, Mohammed; Islam, Tarikul; Momin, Mahmood Ahmed; Nahar, Shamsun; Alam, Samsul

doi:10.1007/s10551-018-3874-6

Cited by 33 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 140 publications

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“…We used Nvivo (specialized software for qualitative research) to obtain the input, enabling us to determine the BGs' stakeholder orientations. In this sense, the software facilitated us to obtain the word frequency by stakeholder group; this software has been previously used in works such as Hartman [61] and Hossain et al [62]. Through the direct reading of the reports, we delimited the stakeholders that the Colombian BGs explicitly defined, and analyzed and classified their CSR strategy in order to review the elements that were inherent to their reporting such as labeling, the adoption of reporting presentation standards (e.g., IIRC, GRI, AA1000), and the maturity of the report.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

CSR Communication Strategies of Colombian Business Groups: An Analysis of Corporate Reports

2018

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The aim of this paper is to assess stakeholder orientation and corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication strategies in the business groups (BGs) of an emerging economy by means of content analysis. We worked with 30 non-financial BGs taken from the Colombian Stock Exchange. The study uses as its unit of analysis corporate reports that have been classified into four categories: annual reports (ARs), sustainability reports (SRs), combined reports (CRs), and integrated reports (IRs). The results show that IRs are the most similar reports, that Colombian BGs are mainly employee-oriented (ARs, SRs, CRs) and shareholder-oriented (IRs), and that response and involvement communication strategies are the most commonly used. Our research has theoretical and practical implications based on the assumption that the study of corporate reports has particular importance for those BGs with diversification strategies and international orientation, since it opens possibilities for future research. no evidence of which among the above-mentioned communication strategies BGs adopt, and which kind of stakeholder orientation they follow.This research is conducted in Colombia, which has an emerging economy where the study of contemporary BGs is fairly recent [10]. In Colombia, BGs are on the rise, and are important for the development of the economy [11]; they have reorganized their structures in recent years in order to be more strategic [12]. Colombia is a country with a tradition of CSR practices [13] and of voluntary disclosure reporting practices [14]. Additionally, Colombian BGs are following internationalization processes [15], leading them to become 'multilatinas'; that is to say, they are firms that are located and consolidated in a Latin American country, and seek expansion and positioning in new markets [16]. Furthermore, the context of developing countries has some cultural, social, political, and economic aspects that make them different [17], and therefore interesting to study.A recent study [18] shows that 68% of consulted investors recognize the importance of CSR reports for their investment decisions and consider the report to be the main tool for communicating CSR practices [19]. This paper aims at identifying corporate reporting practices in the BGs of an emerging economy and subsequently establishing their stakeholder orientation and prevailing CSR communication strategies. To achieve these three objectives, we applied a content analysis of 30 corporate reports from the year 2015 from BGs that are representative of the Colombian economy. Following Habek and Wolniak [20], Venturelli et al. [21], and Davila et al. [22], the BG reports under analysis were classified into four categories: annual reports (AR), sustainability reports (SR), combined reports (CR), and integrated reports (IR). We draw on the stakeholders theory [23] and previous studies [24][25][26][27][28] in order to define the stakeholder categories, allowing us to assess the type of orientation presented by the analyzed Colombian BGs.This study i...

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

CSR Communication Strategies of Colombian Business Groups: An Analysis of Corporate Reports

2018

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“…Businesses are increasingly aware of their ethical responsibility to society and the planet and adopt the objective of contributing to sustainable development, which has led to more companies starting to issue sustainability reports in the past few decades (e.g. Gray, 2010;Hahn & Kühnen, 2013;Hossain et al, 2019). This is particularly the case in large companies, as they hold the necessary resources for establishing a sustainability accounting and reporting system while being exposed to pressure from vigilant stakeholders.…”

Section: Sustainability Reporting and Legitimacymentioning

confidence: 99%

ESG Disclosure and Idiosyncratic Risk in Initial Public Offerings

2021

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Although legitimacy theory provides strong arguments that environmental, social and governance (ESG) disclosure and performance can help mitigate firm-specific (idiosyncratic) risks, this relationship has been repeatedly challenged by conceptual arguments, such as ‘transparency fallacy’ or ‘impression management’, and mixed empirical evidence. Therefore, we investigate this relationship in the revelatory case of initial public offerings (IPOs), which represent the first sale of common stock to the wider public. IPOs are characterised by strong information asymmetry between firm insiders and society, while at the same time suffering from uncertainty in firm legitimacy, culminating in amplified financial risks for both issuers and investors in aftermarket trading. Using data from the United States, we demonstrate that (1) voluntary ESG disclosure reduces idiosyncratic volatility and downside tail risk and (2) higher ESG ratings have lower associated firm-specific volatility and downside tail risk during the first year of trading in the aftermarket. We provide theoretical arguments for the relationships observed, suggesting that companies striving for ESG performance and communicating their efforts signal their compliance with sustainability-related norms, thus acquiring and upholding a societal license to operate. ESG performance and disclosure help companies build their reputation capital with investors after going public. We also report that ESG disclosure is a more consistent proxy for ex-ante uncertainty as an indicator of aftermarket risk, thereby replacing some of the more conventional measures, such as firm age, offered in the existing literature.

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“…The SCT can help us understand whether and how cognitive and communicative cohesion emerge in organizations ( Olufowote, 2017 ; Hossain et al, 2019 ). If a set of symbols for an event is passed from one individual to another, and both individuals shared said symbol about the event, then the symbol can spread to other individuals.…”

Section: Theoretical Orientationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Symbolic Convergence or Divergence? Making Sense of (the Rhetorical) Senses of a University-Wide Organizational Change

Zhao

2021

Front. Psychol.

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This research investigates the extent to which organizational change initiatives may lead to divergent patterns of sensemaking among organizational members. Drawing on the symbolic convergence theory, we performed an in-depth fantasy theme analysis of organization members’ rhetoric around an organizational change at a private university. Our analysis uncovers six fantasy themes and two corresponding fantasy types, which lead to no rhetorical vision. The lack of cognitive convergence between change initiators and change recipients suggests the inherent incompatibility between managerial and employee fantasies around organizational change, barring the exceptions of dual-responsibility change recipients (e.g., faculty members who also assume administrative responsibilities), who tend to adopt the change initiator rhetoric. Overall, this study informs our extant knowledge of change sensemaking with novel theoretical and methodological insights and bears implications for organizational change researchers and practitioners alike.

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Understanding Communication of Sustainability Reporting: Application of Symbolic Convergence Theory (SCT)

Cited by 33 publications

References 140 publications

CSR Communication Strategies of Colombian Business Groups: An Analysis of Corporate Reports

CSR Communication Strategies of Colombian Business Groups: An Analysis of Corporate Reports

ESG Disclosure and Idiosyncratic Risk in Initial Public Offerings

Symbolic Convergence or Divergence? Making Sense of (the Rhetorical) Senses of a University-Wide Organizational Change

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