Organized hypocrisy, organizational facades, and sustainability reporting

    Authors

    C. H. Cho; M. Laine; R. W. Roberts;M. Rodrigue

    Comments

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    Abbreviated Journal Title

    Account. Organ. Soc.

    Keywords

    CORPORATE SOCIAL-RESPONSIBILITY; ENVIRONMENTAL PERFORMANCE; STAKEHOLDER; INFLUENCE; DISCLOSURE; EXPLORATION; INDUSTRY; LEGITIMATION; STRATEGIES; SOCIETY; WOULD; Business, Finance

    Abstract

    Sustainability discourse is becoming ubiquitous. Still, a significant gap persists between corporate sustainability talk and practice. Prior research on corporate sustainability reporting has relied primarily on two competing theoretical framings, signaling theory and legitimacy theory, which often produce contradictory results regarding the significance and effects of such disclosures. Thus, despite this substantial body of research, the role that sustainability disclosures can play in any transition toward a less unsustainable society remains unclear. In an effort to advance our collective understanding of voluntary corporate sustainability reporting, we propose a richer and more nuanced theoretical lens by drawing on prior work in organized hypocrisy (Brunsson, 1989) and organizational facades (Abrahamson & Baumard, 2008; Nystrom & Strabuck, 1984). We argue that contradictory societal and institutional pressures, in essence, require organizations to engage in hypocrisy and develop facades, thereby severely limiting the prospects that sustainability reports will ever evolve into substantive disclosures. To illustrate the use of these theoretical concepts, we employ them to examine the talk, decisions, and actions of two highly visible U.S.-based multinational oil and gas corporations during the time period of significant national debate over oil exploration in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge. We conclude that the concepts of organizational facade and organized hypocrisy are beneficial to the sustainability disclosure literature because they provide theoretical space to more formally acknowledge and incorporate how the prevailing economic system and conflicting stake-holder demands constrain the action choices of individual corporations. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

    Journal Title

    Accounting Organizations and Society

    Volume

    40

    Publication Date

    1-1-2015

    Document Type

    Article

    Language

    English

    First Page

    78

    Last Page

    94

    WOS Identifier

    WOS:000349271300005

    ISSN

    0361-3682

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