Collaboration by Design: Stakeholder Engagement in GRI Sustainability Reporting Guidelines

Abstract

From the perspective of communication as constitutive, organization–stakeholder dialogue about corporate social responsibility constitutes the main intersection of organization and environment. Sustainability reporting has emerged as an important tool used by organizations and their stakeholders in the regulation of that intersection. This study examines the evolution of a de facto standard for such reporting, the Global Reporting Initiative Guidelines, from their inception in 2000 to the current form. The study focuses on the Global Reporting Initiative’s specifications regarding stakeholder engagement; these specifications are conceptualized as institutional messages. Analysis reveals how the changes in features of these messages have helped position sustainability reporting as a new genre of organizational communication. Results are consequential for theorizing the nexus of communication and organization, as seen in the role of micro matters of language constituting a product of communication design that has helped shape organization–stakeholder collaboration worldwide.