Sustainability accounting standards in the USA – procedural legitimacy

Abstract

This chapter introduces the framework developed to assess procedural legitimacy and its consequences. It reviews the literature on the procedural legitimacy of two major multi-stakeholder initiatives in the realm of corporate social responsibility. The chapter describes the research design, and presents the case study findings. The procedural legitimacy of sustainability accounting multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs) is a policy issue, a practical issue, and a theoretical issue, since the literature has only just begun to conceptualize what it could be – and to investigate its application to actual MSIs. The sustainability accounting standards board develops industry-specific sustainability accounting standards for publically traded US companies with a focus on investors. The procedural legitimacy of MSIs is defined in terms of inclusiveness, transparency, and deliberativeness. L. W. Fransen and A. Kolk use three categories to analyse the development of MSIs: governance, participation, and decision-making.