The relationship between family ownership and Corporate Sustainability

Abstract

Sustainability reporting has become a worldwide adopted practice as the demand for transparency about environmental and social issues increases. Traditionally, financials are responsible for annual (financial) reports. However, as sustainability reporting is still in the development phase, the responsibilities of financials in that type of disclosure have yet to be explored. As most research focuses on private sector organizations, this thesis studies the under-investigated (potential) involvement of financials in the internal- and external sustainability reporting processes within public organizations. By conducting various interviews with a variance of financials in two public sector organizations in the Netherlands, results are presented. The findings present a very limited involvement of financials in the internal sustainability reporting process and no involvement in the external reporting on sustainability. Additionally, the potential involvement that financials feel they have is non-existent in the external reporting on sustainability, and limited in the internal sustainability reporting process.