Organizational Dynamics of Environmental/Sustainability Reporting: A Case for Structure and Agency of Collective Actors

Abstract

This paper reports a research engagement with a Spanish electricity organization to analyze a dynamic process of structuration within the firm. Structuration for the development of environmental/sustainability reporting, as part of a wider undertaking by the firm towards environmental/sustainability management. The study therefore responds to recent calls to advance structuration theory and for an in-depth, contextual and interventionist exploration of accounting. It does so by underlining legitimation, signification and domination structures developed to respond to institutional pressures, as well as the agency of collective actors, the accounting department and the environmental/sustainability management department.

Keywords: organizational dynamics, environmental and sustainability reporting, structure, agency, engagement research, qualitative case study

JEL Classification: M00