This paper aims to assess the disclosure on materiality analysis in sustainability and integrated reports through the lenses of legitimacy and stakeholder theory. The following three research questions are addressed: to what extent do companies report on their materiality analysis, what are the methods used for the analysis of the stakeholders and their topics/aspects and is there a higher disclosure of information of materiality assessment because of G4.,The paper uses an archival research approach and deploys content analysis. Thus, a binary disclosure index was developed that indicates whether materiality related information are mentioned and explained in detail. The sample contains 132 reports from 33 companies of the German 110 HDAX stock market index between 2014 and 2017.,The paper reveals that materiality analysis is a growing phenomenon. Nevertheless, companies disclose only a small amount of related information and fail to explain the methods for the stakeholder and topics/aspects identification. Thus, the underlying processes to define the report content remains unclear. Through the lenses of legitimacy theory, the study indicates that materiality analysis can strategically be misused to define report content without considering the interests of legitimized stakeholder groups and thus, does not improve the reports to those groups.,Managers are urged to regard the importance of reporting about ongoing materiality assessments, as otherwise, concerns about the overall reliability of the information presented may arise.,Poor reporting about materiality assessments might lead to potential conflicts with stakeholders that do see their important topics not sufficiently reflected in the sustainability or integrated report.,This study contributes to the literature regarding materiality in sustainability and integrated reporting and uses the assumptions of disclosure theories to evaluate the disclosure of a specific disclosure item.

中文翻译：

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可持续性和综合报告中的重要性分析

本文旨在通过合法性和利益相关者理论的视角，评估可持续性和综合报告中重要性分析的披露。解决了以下三个研究问题：公司在多大程度上报告了他们的重要性分析，分析了利益相关者及其主题/方面使用的方法是什么，是否因为 G4 导致了更高的重要性评估信息披露。 ,本文采用档案研究方法并部署内容分析。因此，开发了一个二元披露指数，表明是否提及并详细解释了与重要性相关的信息。样本包含2014年至2017年德国110 HDAX股票市场指数33家公司的132份报告。,论文揭示重要性分析是一个日益增长的现象。然而，企业只披露了少量相关信息，并没有说明利益相关者和主题/方面识别的方法。因此，定义报告内容的基本流程仍不清楚。通过合法性理论的视角，该研究表明，在不考虑合法利益相关者群体的利益的情况下，可以战略性地滥用重要性分析来定义报告内容，因此不会改善向这些群体的报告。报告正在进行的重要性评估，否则可能会引起对所提供信息的整体可靠性的担忧。