Decoupling in Sustainability Disclosure: An Analysis of its Determinants

Abstract

Mitigating decoupling in sustainability reporting is essential to advancing reliable disclosure and ensuring that reporting fulfills its intended function. This thesis aims to provide a thorough understanding of decoupling in sustainability reporting and the organizational and contextual factors that can exacerbate or mitigate it. Starting from a systematic literature review of papers on decoupling in sustainability reporting and its determinants published in indexed journals, this thesis identifies some factors at the company and context levels that drive and/or prevent decoupling in sustainability reporting through the application of quantitative analytical techniques to an international sample of 3,465 listed companies from 2009 to 2023.