aktuelle Publikationen (ab 2015)

Sustainability in higher education’s annual reports: An empirical study on Australian and Austrian universities

Author(s)
Michaela Schaffhauser-Linzatti, Stefan Ossmann
Abstract

Purpose
Higher education institutions are regarded as forerunners and pioneers of sustainability. However, it is to question whether they actually fulfill their role model function. This paper aims to reveal whether selected universities in Australia and Austria meet the reporting expectations about their activities on sustainability in very heterogeneous environments.

Design/methodology/approach
Annual reports of selected universities in Australia and Austria are screened by the qualitative text analysis suggested by Mayring to identify their information policy on sustainability. Following the standard definitions, sustainability comprises economic, environmental and social aspects as main categories, which are supplemented further by specifically adapted eight subcategories.

Findings
The results reveal that the universities concentrate on economic information, preferably on accounting, whereas social aspects are of second importance. Environmental activities that essentially shape the image of sustainability for the majority of the stakeholders are mostly unattended.

Research limitations/implications
For further research, the authors suggest analyzing the reports of additional countries to get a bigger picture on the role of sustainability information in university reporting. Possible limitations are because of language use and time requirements, as each report must be encoded manually.

Practical implications
The results reveal the gaps that standard setters should fill by enforcing sustainability content in universities’ reports.

Originality/value
This paper is the first to analyze the annual reports of international universities in respect to sustainability. Hereby, we further fill a gap by applying a qualitative text analysis on the basis of individually derived categories to reveal the sustainability aspects more precisely.

Organisation(s)
Department of Accounting, Innovation and Strategy, Department of Economic and Social History
Journal
International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education
Volume
19
Pages
233-248
No. of pages
16
ISSN
1467-6370
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1108/IJSHE-05-2016-0093
Publication date
01-2018
Peer reviewed
Yes
Austrian Fields of Science 2012
502052 Business administration
Keywords
ASJC Scopus subject areas
Education, Human Factors and Ergonomics
Portal url
https://ucris.univie.ac.at/portal/en/publications/sustainability-in-higher-educations-annual-reports-an-empirical-study-on-australian-and-austrian-universities(50b26883-e7d0-4bc0-b7ba-e118b433f9a3).html