Purpose

The aim of this paper is to provide an account of the period prior to the creation of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI): a body that was critical to the institutionalization of sustainability reporting (SR). By examining this “pre-history,” we bring to light the actors, activities and ways of thinking that made SR more likely to be institutionalized once the GRI entrepreneurship came to the fore.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper revisits a time period (the 1990s) that has yet to be formally written about in any depth and traces the early development of what became SR. This material is examined using a constructivist understanding of regulation.

Findings

The authors contend that a convergence of actors and structural conditions were pivotal to the development of SR. Specifically, this paper demonstrates that a combination of actors (such as epistemic communities, carriers, regulators and reporters) as well as the presence of certain conditions (such as the societal context, analogies with financial reporting, environmental reporting and reporting design issues) contributed to the development of SR which was consolidated (as well as extended) in 1999 with the advent of the GRI.

Research limitations/implications

This paper theorizes (through a historical analysis) how SR is sustained by a network of institutional actors and conditions which can assist reflection on future SR development.

Originality/value

This paper brings together empirical material from a time that (sadly) is passing from living memory. The paper also extends the use of a conceptual frame that is starting to influence scholarship in accounting that seeks to understand how norms develop.

中文翻译：

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可持续发展报告的前史：建构主义解读

目的

本文的目的是提供全球报告倡议组织 (GRI) 成立之前的一段时期：该组织对可持续性报告 (SR) 的制度化至关重要。通过研究这个“前史”，​​我们揭示了一旦 GRI 创业脱颖而出，使 SR 更有可能被制度化的参与者、活动和思维方式。

设计/方法/方法

这篇论文回顾了一个尚未正式写成的时期（1990 年代），并追溯了 SR 的早期发展。使用对监管的建构主义理解来检查这些材料。

发现

作者认为，参与者和结构条件的融合对 SR 的发展至关重要。具体而言，本文证明了参与者（例如认知社区、载体、监管者和报告者）的组合以及某些条件（例如社会背景、与财务报告的类比、环境报告和报告设计问题）的存在SR 的发展在 1999 年随着 GRI 的出现而得到巩固（以及扩展）。

研究限制/影响

本文（通过历史分析）理论化了社会责任如何由机构参与者和条件网络维持，这有助于反思未来社会责任的发展。

原创性/价值

这篇论文汇集了（可悲的是）从生活记忆中消失的时间的经验材料。该论文还扩展了一个概念框架的使用，该框架开始影响旨在了解规范如何发展的会计学。