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Sustainability information in European small- and medium-sized enterprises

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dc.contributor.authorMarín-Hernández, Salvador
dc.contributor.authorOrtiz-Martínez, Esther
dc.contributor.departmentEconomía Financiera y Contabilidad
dc.contributor.otherFacultades de la UMU::Facultad de Economía y Empresa
dc.date.accessioned2026-01-13T13:04:45Z
dc.date.available2026-01-13T13:04:45Z
dc.date.copyright© The Author(s) 2023
dc.date.issued2023-05-25
dc.description.abstractCurrently, there is an emphasis on the role of knowledge in corporate sustainability reporting. Europe has just published a new Directive on Corporate Sustainability Reporting Disclosure and elaborating new European Sustainability Reporting Standards. However, no studies on this subject cover the micro (firm-level) spectrum and focus on small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the backbone of the European company. This paper aims to analyze sustainability reports voluntarily disclosed by European SMEs using lexical analysis because narrative information requires more than traditional methodology. The variable company’s size is used to check if it supposes differences in the lexical features of the reports. The sample comprises all the voluntarily issued sustainability reports available on the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) database for 2016–2018, written in English and pdf format by European SMEs. It is obtained that there is a positive relationship between a company’s size and the length of sustainability reports. Bigger small- and medium-sized companies repeat more words, and the most frequently used words are similar, regardless of the company’s size. Lexical analysis shows that there is some template for drafting these sustainability reports used by all companies, so their narration about sustainable development is the same. This study provides an opportunity to improve knowledge about sustainability disclosure and standards on the SMEs’ scope, which is scarce. Disclosure of sustainability reports is also becoming essential for SMEs to ensure greater comparability and transparency and to cope with the global challenge of sustainability. However, for these companies, this should be proportionate.
dc.formatapplication/pdf
dc.format.extent26
dc.identifier.citationJournal of the Knowledge Economy, 2023, Vol. 15, pp. 7497–7522
dc.identifier.doihttps://doi.org/10.1007/s13132-023-01386-7
dc.identifier.eissn1868-7873
dc.identifier.issn1868-7865
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10201/186212
dc.languageeng
dc.publisherSpringer
dc.relationSin financiación externa a la Universidad
dc.relation.publisherversionhttps://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13132-023-01386-7
dc.rightsAttribution 4.0 International*
dc.rights.accessRightsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
dc.rights.urihttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/*
dc.subjectSustainability reports
dc.subjectSMEs
dc.subjectLexical analysis
dc.subjectGRI
dc.subjectNon financial information
dc.subject.odsNo relacionado con ningún objetivo de desarrollo sostenible
dc.titleSustainability information in European small- and medium-sized enterprises
dc.typeinfo:eu-repo/semantics/article
dc.type.versioninfo:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersion
dspace.entity.typePublicationes
relation.isAuthorOfPublication33bcecbf-1a15-4164-b7c1-63deef93db0f
relation.isAuthorOfPublication6c43e4a9-47b6-48e3-bf5b-36fd8271dfa5
relation.isAuthorOfPublication.latestForDiscovery33bcecbf-1a15-4164-b7c1-63deef93db0f
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