Adaptive framing of sustainability in CEO letters

Purpose This study provides insights into the external powers that can influence business leaders' communication on sustainability. It shows how the socio-political context manifested in national and transnational policies, regulations and other socio-political events can influence the CEO talk about sustainability. Design/methodology/approach This study adopts an interpretative and qualitative method of analysis using the lenses of the theoretical concepts of framing and legitimacy, analysing CEOs’ letters from 10 multinational industrial companies based in Sweden, over the period of 2008–2019. Findings The results show that various discourses of sustainability, emerging from policies and regulatory initiatives, socio-political events and civil society activism, are reflected in the ways CEOs frame sustainability over time. This article reveals that CEOs not only lead the discourse of profitable sustainability, but they also slowly adapt their sustainability talk to other discourses led by the policymakers, regulators and civil society. This pattern of a slow adaptation is especially visible in a period characterised by increased discourses of climate urgency and regulations related to social and environmental sustainability. Research limitations/implications The theoretical frame is built by integrating the concepts of legitimacy and framing. Appreciating dynamic notions of legitimacy and framing, the study suggests a novel view of reporting as a film series, presenting many frames of sustainability over time. It helps the study to conceptualise CEO framing of sustainability as adaptive framing. This study suggests using a dynamic notion of adaptive framing in future longitudinal studies of corporate- and accounting communication. Practical implications The results show that policymakers, regulators and civil society, through their initiatives, influence the CEOs' framing of sustainability. It is thus important for regulators to substantiate sustainability-related discourses and develop conceptual tools and language of social and environmental sustainability that can lead CEO framing more effectively. Originality/value The study engages with Goffman's notion of dynamic framing. Dynamic framing suggests a novel view of reporting as a film series, presenting many frames of sustainability over time and conceptualises CEO framing of sustainability as adaptive framing.