Sustainability (Environmental, Social, and Governance) Reporting: Tracing Materiality’s Visionary and Relational Role over 25 Years through Boundary Objects and Boundary Work
通过91个访谈和边界对象理论，追踪了重要性概念在可持续发展报告中25年来的演变，从愿景性对象变为分裂的制度对象，揭示了其帮助不同参与者重新认识自身及彼此关系的作用。
ABSTRACT The concept of materiality has acquired great significance in sustainability reporting. Through the theoretical bricolage of boundary objects and boundary work and drawing upon 91 interviews, we trace materiality’s evolving role across four interconnected episodes. Our findings show that materiality begins as a multivisionary object that draws the attention of largely unconnected groups. As different actors become more aware of each other, materiality becomes a meeting point object, and then a discursive and bridge-like object for them to talk about their relationships. However, the subsequent escalation of competitive boundary work turns materiality into a divisive institutional object that inhibits cooperation. Moving beyond a view of materiality as a way to distinguish significant information within corporate reports, our analysis fleshes out the visionary and relational roles that materiality has performed in sustainability reporting for a broad range of field-level actors to see themselves and their relationships to others in new lights.