TY - JOUR
T1 - Reporting on Sustainability and HRM: A Comparative Study of Sustainability Reporting Practices by the World´s Largest Companies
AU - Ehnert, Ina
AU - Parsa, Sepideh
AU - Roper, Ian
AU - Wagner, Marcus
AU - Müller-Camen, Michael
PY - 2016
Y1 - 2016
N2 - As a response to the growing public awareness on the importance of organisational contributions to sustainable development, there is an increased incentive for corporations to report on their sustainability activities. In parallel with this has been the development of ‘Sustainable HRM’ which embraces a growing body of practitioner and academic literature connecting the notions of corporate sustainability to HRM. The aim of this article is to analyse corporate sustainability reporting amongst the world's largest companies and to assess the HRM aspects of sustainability within these reports in comparison to environmental aspects of sustainable management and whether organisational attributes – principally country-of-origin – influences the reporting of such practices. A focus in this article is the extent to which the reporting of various aspects of sustainability may reflect dominant models of corporate governance in the country in which a company is headquartered. The findings suggest, first and against expectations, that the overall disclosure on HRM-related performance is not lower than that on environmental performance. Second, companies report more on their internal workforce compared to their external workforce. Finally, international differences, in particular those between companies headquartered in liberal market economies and coordinated market economies, are not as apparent as expected.
AB - As a response to the growing public awareness on the importance of organisational contributions to sustainable development, there is an increased incentive for corporations to report on their sustainability activities. In parallel with this has been the development of ‘Sustainable HRM’ which embraces a growing body of practitioner and academic literature connecting the notions of corporate sustainability to HRM. The aim of this article is to analyse corporate sustainability reporting amongst the world's largest companies and to assess the HRM aspects of sustainability within these reports in comparison to environmental aspects of sustainable management and whether organisational attributes – principally country-of-origin – influences the reporting of such practices. A focus in this article is the extent to which the reporting of various aspects of sustainability may reflect dominant models of corporate governance in the country in which a company is headquartered. The findings suggest, first and against expectations, that the overall disclosure on HRM-related performance is not lower than that on environmental performance. Second, companies report more on their internal workforce compared to their external workforce. Finally, international differences, in particular those between companies headquartered in liberal market economies and coordinated market economies, are not as apparent as expected.
U2 - 10.1080/09585192.2015.1024157
DO - 10.1080/09585192.2015.1024157
M3 - Journal article
SN - 0958-5192
VL - 27
SP - 88
EP - 108
JO - International Journal of Human Resource Management
JF - International Journal of Human Resource Management
IS - 1
ER -