Sustainability accounting between organizational legitimacy and efficiency

Abstract: The increasing attention to corporate sustainability over the past few decades determined a surge in the need for information linked to organizations' environmental and social performance. In this perspective, sustainability accounting has emerged as key provider of that information, as it enables the measurement, the control and the reporting of a corporation's environmental and social issues. Nevertheless, management research has not developed thus far a comprehensive paradigm for the topic and corporations still encounter challenges in finding a suitable approach. Hence, the aim of this study is to explore how sustainability accounting is managed in companies with strong experience in sustainability management. In this perspective, the influence of organizational legitimacy and efficiency pressures on sustainability accounting is analyzed. Accordingly, qualitative case studies were conducted at two leading corporations in the field of sustainability management. As a result, a model was developed showing that efficiency and legitimacy forces have a crucial role in shaping this function. Sustainability accounting supports the translation of the strategy into operations, thus answering to efficiency needs. At the same time, it enables communication with external stakeholders, hence resulting key in ensuring organizational legitimacy. When dealing with the topic, companies appear to experience a contrast between their need for a tailored approach and the external requests for standardization and comparability. It was found that organizations could answer to this tension by translating the institutionalized standards into a model that suits their characteristics. This study contributes to the management literature by widening the spectrum of factors to be considered when researching on sustainability accounting. Additionally, practitioners can find guidance about the critical aspects to consider when dealing with the design and the management of these systems.