Sustainability reporting: A comparative study of NGOs and MNCs

This paper investigates the extent to which non‐governmental organizations (NGOs) disclose their sustainability activities. NGOs may lose legitimacy because they, themselves, do not do the very things they ask corporations to do. As such, NGOs' legitimate role in corporate governance is questioned. We define legitimacy as self‐organizing and self‐disclosing activities in the area of sustainability. Using data from Fortune 250 (corporations) and the Forbes 200 (NGOs), we compare these two organizational types with regard to their commitment to sustainable development. Across eight dimensions of legitimacy we found that corporations outscored NGOs. Five of the eight dimensions showed statistically significant differences; two dimensions showed marginally significant findings (p < .06). The directionality of the findings indicates a greater commitment to sustainability among corporations than among NGOs. The findings suggest that an inadequacy of commitment and disclosure on the part of NGOs prevents them from claiming legitimacy in their quest to participate in corporate governance.