A Transactional Culture Analysis of Corporate Sustainability Reporting Practices

Corporate sustainability (CS) can be defined as organizations’ commitment to profitability, environment, and social well-being. This study uses a transactional culture analysis of CS reporting practices to explain why some Indian organizations conform to voluntary CS reporting guidelines and others do not. The literature contains two different perspectives on culture, defined broadly as a set of values that guide people’s behavior at a given time. Most past studies typically use national culture to explain differences in CS practices across nations. This concept embeds corporate cultures within the larger national culture, neglecting intranation diversity. Conversely, according to the transactional culture approach (TCA) used in this study, cultures are plural and independent of geoethnic boundaries, and emerge through social transactions (i.e., patterned exchanges of material and immaterial items between individuals or groups). TCA encourages multilevel explorations of complex social phenomena. Since CS reporting preferences are the outcome of ongoing transactions among organizational stakeholders across different levels, TCA is more appropriate for this study. Since this application requires an understanding of social accountability (i.e., how individuals hold themselves accountable to others and vice versa), the authors use Mary Douglas’s Cultural Framework (DCF), a transactional framework of social accountability. A qualitative exploration of six Indian organizations using DCF reveals different dominant forms of social accountability in these organizations: either alone or as paired hybrids. Consequently, each organization prioritizes different stakeholders and reacts differently to voluntary CS reporting guidelines. Identifying the dominant form or forms of social accountability in their organizations and understanding their underlying reasons for resisting voluntary CS guidelines enables managers to secure better collaboration for their CS initiatives.