Abstract
In the current socioeconomic context, the question of local government sustainability transparency is of great interest to policymakers, managers, citizens and other stakeholders, and yet one to which previous research has devoted little specific attention. At the same time, the Internet has become an instrument of good governance worldwide and government entities in Europe have strived to promote e-government to improve transparency towards citizens. The aim of this study was to identify factors that can help politicians and managers improve practices of sustainability information disclosed by European local governments. To do so, an empirical study was conducted of 91 municipalities in nine countries, comparing three main administrative cultures. Our analysis of the study results highlights various demographic, socioeconomic, financial and legal factors that may be useful to policymakers and managers in promoting the online provision of sustainability information in Anglo-Saxon, Nordic and Southern European countries.
Highlights
In recent years, the international situation of ongoing financial crisis has led to sustainability being viewed as a key concept in government offices [1,2]
The present study extends these earlier approaches by examining Local governments (LGs) representing the three prevalent administrative cultures in Europe [23,74], and by analysing the possible influence of different factors, including those referring to the legal system, which have not previously been used in this type of analysis
Following the method described in previous research, we examined the websites of the 91 LGs in the study sample, by reference to the list obtained from the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) guidelines [24,59]
Summary
The international situation of ongoing financial crisis has led to sustainability being viewed as a key concept in government offices [1,2]. In this regard, international organisations have recommended that governments should adopt governance strategies to implement sustainability criteria in public administration [3,4,5,6]. Local governments (LGs) play a key role in the sustainability of public policies.
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