Sustainability accounting and reporting: organisational identity construction and enactment in local governments

Purpose Sustainability accounting and reporting (SAR) has experienced a wide diffusion in the last decades, also in the public sector. It is primarily useful for increasing accountability, transparency and organisational legitimacy. As a consequence, scholars have focused their attention on the external dimensions of SAR and its relationship with organisations' financial performance. This focus has left the internal and managerial dimension of SAR largely underexplored. This article seeks to address this gap by shedding light on the role that SAR can play in the processes of organisational identity construction and enactment. Design/methodology/approach A longitudinal case study was conducted to examine the ongoing voluntary adoption of SAR by an Italian pioneer municipality (MoB), and how this practice has contributed to its identity construction and enactment. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and official documents. Findings The research identifies voluntary SAR as both driven by organisational identity and used to construct and enact it in the absence of a public policy. More specifically, SAR contributes to organisational identity construction and enactment by building a collective memory that demonstrates the alignment and consistency between public employees' work and the identity of the organisation to which they belong. Originality/value The research advances the literature on SAR by exploring its contribution to studies on organisational identity. It analyses documents that reflect various phases of organisational processes (planning, accounting and reporting) as organisational practices that contribute to the construction and enactment of organisational identity. The absence of an explicit public policy could be seen as undermining the role of SAR as an accountability tool. Instead, this article shows that voluntary SAR may operate internally as a technology through which organisational identity is articulated, stabilised and enacted over time. This perspective highlights the organisational potential of SAR beyond its external accountability function.