Accepted author manuscript, 2.25 MB, PDF document
Available under license: CC BY: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Final published version
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - Sustainability (Environmental, Social, and Governance) Reporting
T2 - Tracing Materiality’s Visionary and Relational Role over 25 Years through Boundary Objects and Boundary Work
AU - Wang, Di
AU - Cooper, Stuart M.
AU - Chapman, Christopher S.
AU - Calace, Donato
PY - 2025/4/1
Y1 - 2025/4/1
N2 - The concept of materiality has acquired great significance in sustainability reporting. Through the theoretical bricolage of boundary objects and boundary work and drawing upon 91 interviews, we trace materiality’s evolving role across four interconnected episodes. Our findings show that materiality begins as a multivisionary object that draws the attention of largely unconnected groups. As different actors become more aware of each other, materiality becomes a meeting point object, and then a discursive and bridge-like object for them to talk about their relationships. However, the subsequent escalation of competitive boundary work turns materiality into a divisive institutional object that inhibits cooperation. Moving beyond a view of materiality as a way to distinguish significant information within corporate reports, our analysis fleshes out the visionary and relational roles that materiality has performed in sustainability reporting for a broad range of field-level actors to see themselves and their relationships to others in new lights.
AB - The concept of materiality has acquired great significance in sustainability reporting. Through the theoretical bricolage of boundary objects and boundary work and drawing upon 91 interviews, we trace materiality’s evolving role across four interconnected episodes. Our findings show that materiality begins as a multivisionary object that draws the attention of largely unconnected groups. As different actors become more aware of each other, materiality becomes a meeting point object, and then a discursive and bridge-like object for them to talk about their relationships. However, the subsequent escalation of competitive boundary work turns materiality into a divisive institutional object that inhibits cooperation. Moving beyond a view of materiality as a way to distinguish significant information within corporate reports, our analysis fleshes out the visionary and relational roles that materiality has performed in sustainability reporting for a broad range of field-level actors to see themselves and their relationships to others in new lights.
U2 - 10.2308/tar-2023-0675
DO - 10.2308/tar-2023-0675
M3 - Journal article
SP - 1
EP - 25
JO - The Accounting Review
JF - The Accounting Review
SN - 0001-4826
ER -