IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v13y2021i8p4128-d531847.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Sustainability Reporting in the Public Realm—Trends and Patterns in Knowledge Development

Author

Listed:
  • Cristina Alexandrina Stefanescu

    (Department of Accounting and Audit, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Babeş-Bolyai University, 400591 Cluj-Napoca, Romania)

Abstract

In the wake of increased awareness, as there has been an increasing need for sustainability reporting, research studies have evolved over time. Addressing the challenges and pathways of research in the particular realm of public entities was appropriate to enrich the scientific literature. Since prior studies either conducted a structured literature review on non-financial reporting formats or were focused exclusively on social and environmental accounting, and no bibliometric review has yet been conducted on sustainability reporting in the public sector, this study aims to fill this gap. The objective of the paper is to identify the trends and patterns in knowledge development in the area of sustainability reporting in the public sector to investigate its structure and derive inferences and insights. Bibliometric results reveal that research in this field is still at an early stage, showing an unsteady, slightly upward trend. The literature responded well to the need to enhance the understanding of the public institutions’ role in advancing non-financial reporting and evolved along with the continuous development of the related voluntary frameworks (e.g., GRI, ). In this assent, further studies approaching the first mandatory regulation of non-financial information disclosure (Directive 95/2014/EU) are encouraged.

Suggested Citation

  • Cristina Alexandrina Stefanescu, 2021. "Sustainability Reporting in the Public Realm—Trends and Patterns in Knowledge Development," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(8), pages 1-23, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:8:p:4128-:d:531847
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/8/4128/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/8/4128/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sara Giovanna Mauro & Lino Cinquini & Elena Simonini & Andrea Tenucci, 2020. "Moving from Social and Sustainability Reporting to Integrated Reporting: Exploring the Potential of Italian Public-Funded Universities’ Reports," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(8), pages 1-19, April.
    2. Aria, Massimo & Cuccurullo, Corrado, 2017. "bibliometrix: An R-tool for comprehensive science mapping analysis," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 11(4), pages 959-975.
    3. Amanpreet Kaur & Sumit Lodhia, 2018. "Stakeholder engagement in sustainability accounting and reporting," Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 31(1), pages 338-368, January.
    4. Davide Giacomini & Laura Rocca & Cristian Carini & Mario Mazzoleni, 2018. "Overcoming the Barriers to the Diffusion of Sustainability Reporting in Italian LGOs: Better Stick or Carrot?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(1), pages 1-14, January.
    5. Giuseppe Nicolo & Gianluca Zanellato & Francesca Manes-Rossi & Adriana Tiron-Tudor, 2021. "Corporate reporting metamorphosis: empirical findings from state-owned enterprises," Public Money & Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(2), pages 138-147, February.
    6. Silvana Secinaro & Davide Calandra & Denisa Petricean & Federico Chmet, 2020. "Social Finance and Banking Research as a Driver for Sustainable Development: A Bibliometric Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(1), pages 1-19, December.
    7. Kuntal Goswami & Sumit Lodhia, 2014. "Sustainability disclosure patterns of South Australian local councils: a case study," Public Money & Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(4), pages 273-280, July.
    8. James Guthrie & Amanda Ball & Federica Farneti, 2010. "Advancing Sustainable Management of Public and Not For Profit Organizations," Public Management Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(4), pages 449-459, July.
    9. Md Moazzem Hossain, 2018. "Sustainability reporting by Australian local government authorities," Local Government Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(4), pages 577-600, July.
    10. Valentina Della Corte & Giovanna Del Gaudio & Fabiana Sepe & Fabiana Sciarelli, 2019. "Sustainable Tourism in the Open Innovation Realm: A Bibliometric Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(21), pages 1-18, November.
    11. John Dumay & James Guthrie & Federica Farneti, 2010. "Gri Sustainability Reporting Guidelines For Public And Third Sector Organizations," Public Management Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(4), pages 531-548, July.
    12. Sara Moggi, 2019. "Social and environmental reports at universities: a Habermasian view on their evolution," Accounting Forum, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(3), pages 283-326, July.
    13. Yi An & Howard Davey & Harun Harun, 2017. "Sustainability Reporting at a New Zealand Public University: A Longitudinal Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(9), pages 1-11, August.
    14. Josette Caruana & Ian Grech, 2019. "Tweaking public sector reporting with integrated reporting (IR) concepts," Public Money & Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(6), pages 409-417, August.
    15. Saeed-Ul Hassan & Peter Haddawy & Jia Zhu, 2014. "A bibliometric study of the world’s research activity in sustainable development and its sub-areas using scientific literature," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 99(2), pages 549-579, May.
    16. Lucia Biondi & Enrico Bracci, 2018. "Sustainability, Popular and Integrated Reporting in the Public Sector: A Fad and Fashion Perspective," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(9), pages 1-16, August.
    17. Sahar Sepasi & Udo Braendle & Amir Hossein Rahdari, 2018. "Comprehensive sustainability reporting in higher education institutions," Social Responsibility Journal, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 15(2), pages 155-170, October.
    18. Kim Ceulemans & Rodrigo Lozano & María Del Mar Alonso-Almeida, 2015. "Sustainability Reporting in Higher Education: Interconnecting the Reporting Process and Organisational Change Management for Sustainability," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 7(7), pages 1-23, July.
    19. Monica Montecalvo & Federica Farneti & Charl de Villiers, 2018. "The potential of integrated reporting to enhance sustainability reporting in the public sector," Public Money & Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(5), pages 365-374, July.
    20. Caterina Cavicchi & Chiara Oppi & Emidia Vagnoni, 2019. "On the feasibility of integrated reporting in healthcare: a context analysis starting from a management commentary," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 23(2), pages 345-371, June.
    21. Carol A. Adams, 2018. "Debate: Integrated reporting and accounting for sustainable development across generations by universities," Public Money & Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(5), pages 332-334, July.
    22. Francesca Manes-Rossi, 2019. "New development: Alternative reporting formats: a panacea for accountability dilemmas?," Public Money & Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(7), pages 528-531, October.
    23. Andrés Navarro-Galera & Mercedes Ruiz-Lozano & Pilar Tirado-Valencia & Araceli de los Ríos-Berjillos, 2017. "Promoting Sustainability Transparency in European Local Governments: An Empirical Analysis Based on Administrative Cultures," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(3), pages 1-20, March.
    24. Agnieszka Janik & Adam Ryszko & Marek Szafraniec, 2020. "Scientific Landscape of Smart and Sustainable Cities Literature: A Bibliometric Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(3), pages 1-39, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Monica Bruzzone & Renata Paola Dameri & Paola Demartini, 2021. "Resilience Reporting for Sustainable Development in Cities," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(14), pages 1-24, July.
    2. Abdulhakeem Raji & Abeer Hassan, 2021. "Sustainability and Stakeholder Awareness: A Case Study of a Scottish University," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(8), pages 1-17, April.
    3. Aurelio Tommasetti & Riccardo Mussari & Gennaro Maione & Daniela Sorrentino, 2020. "Sustainability Accounting and Reporting in the Public Sector: Towards Public Value Co-Creation?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(5), pages 1-19, March.
    4. Walter Leal Filho & Alfonso Coronado-Marín & Amanda Lange Salvia & Fernanda Frankenberger Silva & Franziska Wolf & Todd LeVasseur & Maria J. Kirrane & Federica Doni & Arminda Paço & Malgorzata Blichar, 2022. "International Trends and Practices on Sustainability Reporting in Higher Education Institutions," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(19), pages 1-17, September.
    5. Giuseppe Nicol? & Gianluca Zanellato & Francesca Manes-Rossi & Adriana Tiron-Tudor, 2019. "Beyond Financial Reporting. Integrated Reporting and its determinants: Evidence from the context of European state-owned enterprises," FINANCIAL REPORTING, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2019(2), pages 43-72.
    6. Giuseppe Nicolò & Gianluca Zanellato & Adriana Tiron-Tudor, 2020. "Integrated Reporting and European State-Owned Enterprises: A Disclosure Analysis Pre and Post 2014/95/EU," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(5), pages 1-17, March.
    7. Sara Giovanna Mauro & Lino Cinquini & Elena Simonini & Andrea Tenucci, 2020. "Moving from Social and Sustainability Reporting to Integrated Reporting: Exploring the Potential of Italian Public-Funded Universities’ Reports," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(8), pages 1-19, April.
    8. Elena De la Poza & Paloma Merello & Antonio Barberá & Alberto Celani, 2021. "Universities’ Reporting on SDGs: Using THE Impact Rankings to Model and Measure Their Contribution to Sustainability," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(4), pages 1-28, February.
    9. Lucia Biondi & Enrico Bracci, 2018. "Sustainability, Popular and Integrated Reporting in the Public Sector: A Fad and Fashion Perspective," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(9), pages 1-16, August.
    10. Marta Vicente-Lama & Pilar Tirado-Valencia & Mercedes Ruiz-Lozano & Magdalena Cordobés-Madueño, 2023. "The impact of sectoral guidelines on sustainability reporting in ports: the case of the Spanish ports," Maritime Economics & Logistics, Palgrave Macmillan;International Association of Maritime Economists (IAME), vol. 25(3), pages 499-519, September.
    11. Stephen N. Hamilton & Richard D. Waters, 2022. "Mainstreaming Standardized Sustainability Reporting: Comparing Fortune 50 Corporations’ and U.S. News & World Report’s Top 50 Global Universities’ Sustainability Reports," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(6), pages 1-17, March.
    12. Anup Kumar Saha & Habiba Al‐Shaer & Rob Dixon & Istemi Demirag, 2021. "Determinants of Carbon Emission Disclosures and UN Sustainable Development Goals: The Case of UK Higher Education Institutions," Australian Accounting Review, CPA Australia, vol. 31(2), pages 79-107, June.
    13. Davide Giacomini & Laura Rocca & Cristian Carini & Mario Mazzoleni, 2018. "Overcoming the Barriers to the Diffusion of Sustainability Reporting in Italian LGOs: Better Stick or Carrot?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(1), pages 1-14, January.
    14. Andrés Navarro-Galera & Francisco José Alcaraz-Quiles & David Ortiz-Rodriguez, 2018. "Enhancing Sustainability Transparency in Local Governments—An Empirical Research in Europe," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(7), pages 1-22, June.
    15. Gloria Fiorani & Chiara Di Gerio, 2022. "Reporting University Performance through the Sustainable Development Goals of the 2030 Agenda: Lessons Learned from Italian Case Study," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(15), pages 1-19, July.
    16. Mahalaxmi Adhikariparajuli & Abeer Hassan & Mary Fletcher, 2021. "Integrated Reporting Implementation and Core Activities Disclosure in UK Higher Education Institutions," Administrative Sciences, MDPI, vol. 11(3), pages 1-26, August.
    17. Davide Giacomini & Paola Zola & Diego Paredi & Mario Mazzoleni, 2020. "Environmental disclosure and stakeholder engagement via social media: State of the art and potential in public utilities," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 27(4), pages 1552-1564, July.
    18. Shuangqing Sheng & Wei Song & Hua Lian & Lei Ning, 2022. "Review of Urban Land Management Based on Bibliometrics," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(11), pages 1-25, November.
    19. Yi An & Howard Davey & Harun Harun, 2017. "Sustainability Reporting at a New Zealand Public University: A Longitudinal Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(9), pages 1-11, August.
    20. Marcelo Werneck Barbosa, 2022. "A Critical Appraisal of Review Studies in Circular Economy: a Tertiary Study," Circular Economy and Sustainability,, Springer.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:8:p:4128-:d:531847. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.