Implementing Sustainability Reporting (SR): (Neo-) Institutional Theory Insights in the Analysis of the SGR Group, Italy and CityGas, Bulgaria

The aim of this paper is to investigate how the corporate characteristics and contextual factors influence the choice of managers in initiating the sustainability report/reporting (SR) and to understand the role of organisational dynamics. The research design develops through a deductive and inductive approach. The deductive approach is based on an analysis of the social and environmental accounting research (SEAR) strands which use the theoretical framework of (neo-) institutional theory to inquire the adoption and diffusion of SR. The inductive method is based on a research case that focuses on the SGR Group. “How can the neo-institutional theory help explain the process of SGR’s SR implementation in Italian and Bulgarian companies”? The study identifies both the internal and contextual factors associated with the SR development and the regulative, normative, and cognitive dimensions/factors that affect the implementation and institutionalisation of SR in Italy and Bulgaria, in accordance with the different institutional environments in which the social and sustainability accounting projects are developed.