Making the Grade: An Analysis of Sustainability Reporting Standards and GRI Adherence Ratings Atanas Nik Nikolov, Wesley Friske, and Todd Morgan
Coles Working Paper Series, FALL23-03, November 2023
OVERVIEW
The purpose of this study is to determine how institutional factors affect the implementation of sustainability standards established by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI). The sample for the study consists of 4,380 organizations that adopted GRI’s sustainability standards and sustainability reporting framework in the period between 2005 to 2015. The results of this initial investigation suggest that institutional norms and the pressure to achieve organizational legitimacy result in relatively high adherence ratings for: (1) state-owned enterprises (2)Asian organizations, (3) European organizations, (4) large organizations, (5) organizations that provide external assurance of their ratings, and (6) publicly traded companies vs. privately owned ones. Further, the length of experience with sustainability reporting is positively related to adherence ratings, which is suggestive of organizational learning.
52 | Working Papers
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