Rhetorical impression management in sustainability reporting and monitoring mechanisms: Interdependencies with sustainability performance and impact on financial and institutional legitimacy.

Sustainability reports are discretionary vehicles to signal sustainability performance to external constituents. Motives for their provision vary (from signaling the firm's sustainability track record to opportunistically managing perceived legitimacy on the sustainability front). Central to these motives is public perception management. A firm may resort to rhetorical impression management (IM)to strengthen the persuasiveness of its reporting in order to increase benefits of perceived sustainability efforts. The effectiveness of such rhetorical IM hinges, however, on the credibility of the messages conveyed. External assurance, institutionalized reporting formats, stakeholder engagement and internal governance structures may play a central role in establishing external credibility.

Keywords:RHETORIC

Disciplines:Communication sciences, Journalism and professional writing, Media studies, Other media and communications

Project type:Collaboration project