| Abstract [eng] |
Sustainability accounting and corporate social responsibility (CSR) have been researched in various scientific papers, becoming a crucial topic in the past decade. As society pays even more attention to sustainability and environmental issues, sustainable businesses are perceived more favourably and have greater chance to build a trustworthy public image and sell more products or services. However, even though sustainability accounting, sustainability reporting and CSR communication have been researched, it would often be discussed in terms of the traditional means of communication: sustainability or annual reports, websites, press releases, etc., and variuos practices prevailing there. Thus, sustainability communication in online, or social media, brings in novelty for this research. As online communication tools become an essential part of business communications, this research will explore how is the communication in the online channels different from the traditional reporting. Hence, the aim of this research is to find out what practices prevail in both traditional and online sustainability reporting of four Lithuanian companies from retail and telecommunications sector. The research project consists of four parts: 1. In the problem analysis section existing scholars’ work on sustainability reporting, its multidimensionality and online communication trends are overviewed; 2. The next part introduces a theoretical framework and proposes a theoretical model for sustainability reporting in online communication channels; 3. In the third part the empirical research methodology is defined in order to disclose what practices prevail in the online sustainability communication of the selected case companies; 4. In the last part, the empirical research is carried out based on the proposed model looking at four Lithuanian companies. Conclusions are drawn and recommendations are made based on research findings. |
