Sustainability, Popular and Integrated Reporting in the Public Sector: A Fad and Fashion Perspective

Enrico Bracci,Lucia Biondi

doi:10.3390/su10093112

Abstract

This paper provides a comparative analysis of different public accountability means used in the public sector - namely sustainability reporting, popular financial reporting and integrated reporting - in order to highlight their similarities and differences, and reflect on their development, with specific reference to the Italian context. In particular, we speculate about the practical and research implications of their emergence, through the lenses of accountability and managerial fad and fashion literature. The main novelty of the paper is that it is one of the first studies providing a comparative analysis of the three reporting tools debated both in practice and in research. We argue about their diffusion patterns, the commonalities and differences, which suggests different stages of evolution, different actors and forces at play. We provide some preliminary evidence on the risk that accountability innovations may end up just in a fad and fashion uptake, creating inefficiencies and not achieving the aims they are intended for. We also show how the available frameworks and standards have more in common than not, and that there is a risk of creating only new labels, without real innovation or improvement of public accountability.

Highlights

Public accountability is debated in political, media and academic discourses [1], and was driven by new public management (NPM) reforms, which aim to make public sector organizations more accountable [2]
This paper provides a comparative analysis of different public accountability means used in the public sector - namely sustainability reporting, popular financial reporting and integrated reporting - in order to highlight their similarities and differences, and reflect on their development, with specific reference to the Italian context
We show how the available frameworks and standards have more in common than not, and that there is a risk of creating only new labels, without real innovation or improvement of public accountability

Summary

Introduction

Public accountability is debated in political, media and academic discourses [1], and was driven by new public management (NPM) reforms, which aim to make public sector organizations more accountable [2]. Austerity policies are pushing public sector organizations to reinvent the way they provide accountability, to account for the performance of public services and policies. Practitioners and academics alike have proposed, studied and discussed the emergence of innovative public accountability reporting tools, such as sustainability reporting (SR), popular financial reporting (PFR), and more recently integrated reporting (). While they share a common aim to improve the accountability of public sector organizations, they have differences and peculiarities. It has been argued that future research should direct its attention to the relationships and differences between SR and other non-financial types of reporting, such as [11]

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