Determinants of SDG Reporting by Businesses: A Literature Analysis and Conceptual Model

Abstract

Despite the increasing adoption of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by organizations since 2015, the literature on SDG disclosure is nascent and no significant effort has been made to collate the outcome of previous studies. In this study, the current state and determinants of SDG reporting have been identified from the literature. Our findings suggest that most studies focused only on large companies from developed countries. Also, there are three categories of determinants that impact SDG reporting. They are firm-level, report-level and regulation-level. Only report-level determinants are in the business’s control and firm and regulation-level determinants are not directly controlled by businesses. Our analysis summarizes key findings in the area of SDG reporting, as well as important theories and contexts used to explain SDG reporting-related phenomena. Finally, a conceptual framework has been proposed to explain the relationship between SDG reporting adoption and determining factors. As research interest is increasing in the SDG reporting area, researchers can benefit from this study while assessing the present state of SDG reporting and formulating future research directions. Industry practitioners can refer to this study for implementing SDG reporting as it helps them to identify relevant determinants.

The influence of board gender diversity on the sustainable development goals reporting: evidence from Portuguese companies

“…Sustainability reports or integrated reports (that integrates financial and non-financial information) are the primary source for companies to highlight their alignment to 2030 Agenda by reporting on SDGs (Datta & Goyal, 2022). Sustainability reports that disclose a firm's sustainability initiatives, impact the adoption of SDGs and have been also used to measure a company's alignment towards UN SDGs (Izzo et al, 2020a).…”

“…There are few studies related to the explanatory factors of SDGs reporting. Datta and Goyal (2022) identify three categories of determinants that impact SDG reporting: (a) firm-level: focusing on firm size, performance, sector etc., (b) report-level: focusing on the report type, framework, assurance, etc. and (c) regulation-level: focusing on governmental and other regulations.…”

How does ESG performance impact corporate outward foreign direct investment?

“…Therefore, companies must address the increasing social costs associated with conducting business abroad (Bell et al, 2012). Demonstrating willingness and capabilities to achieve sustainable development is a viable approach to successful internationalization (Chang, 2014), and an increasing number of companies have embraced non-competitive strategies such as ESG initiatives to support their internationalization attempts (Datta & Goyal, 2022).…”

“…To address these challenges, a growing number of companies are choosing non‐competitive strategies, such as taking proactive ESG measures, to support their internationalization attempts (Chang, 2014; Datta & Goyal, 2022). This is because ESG activities can yield significant social benefits and reconcile conflicting interests (Velte, 2017), ultimately leading to improved stakeholder relationships and enhanced resource availability.…”

Determinants of online-reporting on sustainable development goals: the case of Portuguese Higher Education Institutions

“…At the same time, online communication is identified by the European Sustainable Development Network as a key to the 2030 Agenda's implementation (Mulholland et al, 2017;Mulholland, 2019). As further research, Monteiro et al (2022) suggest identifying the main determinant factors of SDGs disclosing practices, as in studies in the SDGs reporting field (Pizzi et al, 2021;Datta and Goyal, 2022;De Iorio et al, 2022). Few studies have sought to identify the underlying determinants of organizations' online SDGs disclosure.…”