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Environmental reporting through an ethical looking glass
Citation
Morrison, L and Wilmshurst, T and Shimeld, S, Environmental reporting through an ethical looking glass, Journal of Business Ethics pp. 1-16. ISSN 0167-4544 (2016) [Refereed Article]
Copyright Statement
Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2016
DOI: doi:10.1007/s10551-016-3136-4
Abstract
This paper adopts the lens of environmental
ethics to explore whether there is a disparity between the
ethical approaches of a company in comparison to those
expressed by stakeholders in relation to environmental
issues, specifically those communicated through the corporate
environmental report. Discourse analysis is adopted
to explore the environmental section of the sustainability
reports of the case study company as compared to the
responses of a sample of the company’s stakeholders, using
the lens of three branches of environmental ethics: utilitarianism,
deontology and virtue ethics. Results indicate
that the ethical approaches expressed in the case study
company’s environmental reports were grounded in utilitarianism
and deontology, in contrast to a virtue ethics
approach expressed by external stakeholders. The disparity
widened as the relationship between the company and the
stakeholder became less direct. This disparity signals a
failure to meet one of the primary purposes for preparing
sustainability reports: to engage with stakeholders. As such
this research contributes to the literature by identifying a
disparity in the how this information is communicated
compared with how it is perceived by stakeholders. This
has important implications for the success of current
stakeholder engagement practices.
Item Details
Item Type: | Refereed Article |
---|---|
Research Division: | Economics |
Research Group: | Economic theory |
Research Field: | Economic theory not elsewhere classified |
Objective Division: | Economic Framework |
Objective Group: | Management and productivity |
Objective Field: | Management and productivity not elsewhere classified |
UTAS Author: | Morrison, L (Dr Leanne Morrison) |
UTAS Author: | Wilmshurst, T (Associate Professor Trevor Wilmshurst) |
UTAS Author: | Shimeld, S (Dr Sonia Shimeld) |
ID Code: | 109308 |
Year Published: | 2016 |
Web of Science® Times Cited: | 9 |
Deposited By: | TSBE |
Deposited On: | 2016-06-07 |
Last Modified: | 2021-07-05 |
Downloads: | 0 |
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