The drivers of sustainability disclosure practices in the airport industry: A legitimacy theory perspective

Abstract

In recent years, the airport industry is facing the effects of the growing pressure towards sustainability. In fact, airports have often been accused of having strong environmental and social impacts. This circumstance shed light on the need for airports to provide stakeholders with precise information about the social and environmental effects of their activities. The importance of sustainability disclosure in the airport industry is also attracting the interest of academics. However, studies are still limited and there is a lack of contributions aimed at identifying the drivers of sustainability disclosure in the airport industry. This work aims to fill this gap by analyzing, under the lens of legitimacy theory, the impact of business size, business complexity and corporate visibility on the level of sustainability information disseminated by airports. To this end, a manual content analysis is performed on a sample composed by 145 large European airports to measure the level of sustainability information disseminated. Furthermore, a multiple regression analysis is performed to examine the role played by business size, business complexity and corporate visibility on the level of sustainability disclosure. The results show that the number of passengers, the cargo quantity, the number of terminals and gates and the level of social media exposure represent positive drivers of the sustainability disclosure of the European airports. This study contributes to enriching the academic literature in several ways and offers important managerial implications.

Social media to disseminate circular economy information. An empirical analysis on Twitter

“…The first group of control variables includes: Board Size, Board Gender Diversity, Board Independence, and Audit Committee Size. Board Size was calculated as the total number of members making up the board of directors (Frias‐Aceituno et al, 2013; García‐Sánchez et al, 2023; L'Abate et al, 2023; Vitolla, Raimo, Marrone, et al, 2020; Vitolla, Raimo, & Rubino, 2020). In this regard, it is reasonable to expect a positive impact on the amount of CE information disclosed via Twitter by virtue of the improved control and monitoring functions of the larger boards of directors (Esposito, Raimo, et al, 2023; Vitolla et al, 2023).…”

How does the European Green Deal affect the disclosure of environmental information?

“…From the institutional theory's perspective, organisations are integrated into organisational fields, defined as groups of organisations that interact directly or indirectly and that, taken together, ‘constitute a recognized area of institutional life’ (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983, p. 148), modelling the behaviour of its members (Scott, 1995). Thus, organisations adapt to the institutions that dominate their organisational field in order to maintain their legitimacy (L'Abate et al, 2023). Among the organisations belonging to an organisational field, what DiMaggio and Powell (1983) define as institutional isomorphism is produced, which consists in a homogenisation process by which the dominant norms in the organisational field are transferred to the organisations that compose it, making them increasingly similar to each other.…”

Exploring online sustainability disclosure in the healthcare industry: Evidence from best international hospitals

“…Gaining, maintaining and repairing legitimacy depend heavily on the disclosure policies of organizations (Deegan, 2010;Kuruppu et al, 2019;L'Abate et al, 2023;Raimo et al, 2021;Suchman, 1995).…”

“…It is therefore attributed to organizations that operate in virtuous ways in line with the expectations of stakeholders (Raimo et al, 2021) and requires compliance with a sort of social contract that determines the boundaries within which organizations can perform their activities (Deegan, 2002). Gaining, maintaining and repairing legitimacy depend heavily on the disclosure policies of organizations (Deegan, 2010; Kuruppu et al, 2019; L'Abate et al, 2023; Raimo et al, 2021; Suchman, 1995). In fact, the dissemination of information on a voluntary basis allows organizations to demonstrate their compliance with the social contract and therefore to obtain consent and legitimacy from stakeholders (Deegan, 2010; Kuruppu et al, 2019; Raimo et al, 2021; Yongvanich & Guthrie, 2007).…”