Powstanie i rozwój standardów sprawozdawczości zrównoważonego rozwoju w świetle teorii koalicji rzeczniczych
The development of sustainability reporting standards in the lens of advocacy coalition theory

Author(s): Jan Michalak
Subject(s): Economy, Accounting - Business Administration, Marketing / Advertising
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego
Keywords: sustainable development; reporting standards; Global Reporting Initiative; European Sustainability Reporting Standards; International Sustainability Reporting Standards Board
Summary/Abstract: The monograph addresses sustainable development reporting standards development, analyzing their origins, structure, and interrelationships from the perspective of the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF). The starting point is the evolution of the idea of sustainable development at the UN and EU forums. An important tool for implementing this idea are reporting systems, which enable the assessment of the effectiveness of actions and transparency towards stakeholders. In this context, three sustainable development reporting standards systems play a special role: GRI, EFRAG, and ISSB. Author or the monograph advances the thesis that the development of reporting standards is not solely technical in nature, but is in fact a political and institutional process shaped by the clash of two advocacy coalitions: the precautionary coalition and the economic growth coalition. The research methods applied include comparative analysis of the standards, case studies of the organizations responsible for their development, and content analysis of comment letters submitted during public consultations. The findings reveal substantial differences in the processes of developing GRI, EFRAG, and ISSB standards. These differences, in turn, translated into divergences in the final shape of the standards in terms of their purpose, target user groups, mandatory versus voluntary nature, scope of required disclosures, and approaches to materiality and time horizons. The monograph contributes to the scholarly literature by demonstrating that the formation of sustainability reporting standards should be understood as the outcome of interactions between advocacy coalitions and their influence on the design of sustainability reporting frameworks.

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