Sustainability Reporting at a Crossroads in Italian Universities: Is Web-Based Media Adoption Deinstitutionalising Sustainability Reporting?

Matteo La Torre,Patrizia Di Tullio

doi:10.3390/admsci12010034

Matteo La Torre, Patrizia Di Tullio

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/admsci12010034

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Journal: Administrative Sciences	Publication Date: Feb 17, 2022
Citations: 5	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: University of Chieti-Pescara

Abstract

Higher education institutions and universities have recently started to publish their sustainability and corporate responsibility reports. Yet, due to digitalisation and the benefits of digital reporting, websites offer organisations novel opportunities to communicate more updated, timely and interactive information than a periodic sustainability report. However, we know little about sustainability reporting practice within universities and their use of online communication. This study examines the relationship between sustainability reporting practices and web-based communication practices in Italian universities. We employed a qualitative enquire and content analysis of the sustainability web pages of Italian public universities by analysing their content and updates and their relationship with their adoption of sustainability reporting. Our results suggest there are risks to web-based media being used to replace sustainability reporting, resulting in a deinstitutionalising effect for sustainability reporting. This study contributes to the literature on sustainability reporting and disclosure in universities by exploring web-based university communication on sustainability issues and stimulating the debate on replacing sustainability reports with more timely and interactive forms of communication.

Highlights

As with other public organisations, universities have been subject to changing pressures over the recent decades
Dedicated Website communicated information about sustainability through web pages on their websites, we found that only 13 universities had a separate website dedicated to sustainability
Regarding the relationship between sustainability web pages and sustainability reporting, we found four different approaches that were used by the universities that we classified into four clusters

Summary

Introduction

As with other public organisations, universities have been subject to changing pressures over the recent decades. Initiatives for the corporatisation and commercialisation of universities, such as the introduction of calculative norms and standards, have fostered the adoption of new management techniques (Lapsley and Miller 2004; Larran Jorge and Pena 2017; Parker 2011). The reporting and accountability systems of universities have proliferated to present themselves and their performance externally through annual reports (Lapsley and Miller 2004; Martin-Sardesai et al 2021; Parker 2011). Over the last decade, universities have started to measure and account for the environmental and social impacts of their activities through sustainability reports (Alonso-Almeida et al 2015; Moggi 2019). Sustainability reports “are conceived as a tool for external accountability purposes, as well as for the management control system in universities”

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