Purpose This paper aims to investigate how firms disclose the presentation and content of business model (BM) information in corporate reports to manage their legitimacy in response to European Directive 2014/95. Design/methodology/approach Legitimacy theory is used to identify disclosure strategies pursued by firms in reaction to the new regulation. To understand how firms adopt these strategic responses, semiotic analysis is applied to a sample of European companies’ reports through Crowther’s (2012) framework, which is based on a mechanism of binary oppositions. Findings Half of the sample strategically choose to comply with the European Union (EU) Directive regarding BM information through the use of non-accounting language, figures, and diagrams. Other firms did not disclose any substantive information but managed the impression of compliance with the regulation, while the remainder of the sample dismissed the regulation altogether. Research limitations/implications This study demonstrates how organisations use the disclosure of BM information in their corporate reports to control their legitimacy. The results support the idea that firms can acquire legitimacy by complying with the law or giving the impression of compliance with the regulation. This study provides evidence on the first-time adoption of the EU Directive, and therefore, future research can enlarge the sample and conduct the analysis over a broader time frame. Practical implications A more precise indication of the EU Directive regarding “where” firms should report BM information, “how” the description of a BM should refer to the environmental, social, governance (ESG) factors, and a set of performance measures to track the evolution of a company’s BM overtime is needed. Originality/value While there has been a notable amount of research that has applied content analysis methodologies to investigate the thematic and syntactic aspects of BM disclosure in corporate reports, only a few studies have investigated BM disclosures in relation to the EU Directive. Furthermore, the application of semiotic analysis extends beyond traditional content analysis methodologies because it considers the structure of the story at many levels, thus developing a more complete textual picture of how BMs are described, allowing an analysis of the reasons behind the disclosure strategies pursued by firms.

Traditionally, universities are committed to the missions of conducting research and teaching. Recently, they were also called to contribute to supporting sustainable development in society. Many universities worldwide have experienced sustainability and social reporting practices to demonstrate their commitment to sustainability. However, while sustainability reporting represents the primary means to communicate this commitment externally, research has barely unveiled how universities use other communication technologies, such as social media. This study investigates how universities use social media to engage their stakeholders in their sustainability initiatives and how this is associated with their sustainability reporting practices. We examine some best practices from Italian public universities, which, in addition to their experience in sustainability reporting, use social media (i.e., Facebook, Twitter, Instagram) to create a dialogue with their stakeholders about sustainability. We find that sustainability reporting is often the seed to instil innovative means for stakeholder engagement through social media. The universities with long-standing and continuous sustainability reporting experience use social media to enhance their communication, engage stakeholders and thereby improve their sustainability reporting practices. More worthily, we find that social media is also used as an educational tool to make people aware and foster a culture of sustainability in society.

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PurposeThe Italian government addressed the first wave of its COVID-19 outbreak with a series of social restrictions and calculative practices, all branded with the slogan #istayathome. The hashtag quickly went viral, becoming both a mandate and a mantra and, as the crisis played out, we witnessed the rise of the Italian social movement #istayathome. This study examines how the government's calculative practices led to #istayathome and the constituents that shaped this social movement.Design/methodology/approachThe authors embrace social movement theory and the collective identity perspective to examine #istayathome as a collective action and social movement. Using passive netnography, text mining and interpretative text analysis enhanced by machine learning, the authors analysed just over 350,000 tweets made during the period March to May 2020, each brandishing the hashtag #istayathome.FindingsThe #istayathome movement gained traction as a response to the Italian government's call for collective action. Thus, people became an active part of mobilising collective responsibility, enhancing the government's plans. A collective identity on the part of the Italian people sustained the mass mobilisation, driven by cohesion, solidarity and a deep cultural trauma from COVID-19's dramatic effects. Popular culture and Italy's long traditions also helped to form the collective identity of #istayathome. This study found that calculative practices acted as a persuasive technology in forming this collective identity and mobilising people's collective action. Numbers stimulated the cognitive, moral and emotional connections of the social ties shaping collective identity and responsibility. Thus, through collective identity, calculative practices indirectly influenced mass social behaviors and the social movement.Originality/valueThis study offers a novel theoretical perspective and empirical knowledge to explain how government power affects people's culture and everyday life. It unveils the sociological drivers that mobilise collective behaviors and enriches the accounting literature on the effects of calculative practices in managing emergencies. The study contributes to theory by providing an understanding of how calculative practices can influence collective behaviors and can be used to construct informal networks that go beyond the government's traditional formalities.

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.