Document Type : Original Article

Authors

• Dariush Akhtarshenas ¹
• Shadi Hasanzadeh ¹
• Kamran Sohrab Zadeh ²

¹ Assistant professor of Accounting, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Kurdistan, Sanandaj, Iran.

² Master of Accounting, University of Kurdistan, Tehran, Iran.

Abstract

With the increasing growth of environmental, social and economic concerns globally, sustainability reporting has emerged as a key tool for companies to respond to domestic and foreign stakeholders. However, the lack of a binding standard framework in Iran has created a disconnect between society’s expectations and the actual performance of companies in the field of sustainability. The aim of this research is to identify key factors and analyze the role of effective institutions in the process of developing, monitoring and financing sustainability reporting with a mixed approach (qualitative-quantitative).

In the qualitative part, by conducting 20 semi-structured interviews with accounting experts and analyzing them using thematic analysis, three main axes were extracted: the optimal structure of the standard development committee, appropriate monitoring institutions, and responsible actors in financing sustainability. In the quantitative part, the findings were validated by distributing a questionnaire to 123 experts and analyzing the data using statistical t-tests, analysis of variance and consensus test.

The results indicate that the success of standardization in Iran requires the coordinated participation of governmental institutions (such as the Audit Organization, the Parliament, and ministries) and non-governmental institutions (such as NGOs, unions, and interdisciplinary experts). The findings also showed that there is a significant consensus amo

Keywords

• Corporate sustainability
• sustainable development
• corporate sustainability standardization
• theme analysis

Main Subjects

• مدیریت بهره وری