Diversity at Work: Firms’ Strategic Responses to Mandatory Diversity Disclosure

Research output: Contribution to journalResearch articleContributedpeer-review

Contributors

Abstract

Diversity has emerged as a topic of increasing organizational and legislative relevance. Despite forming a burgeoning research field in accounting, little is known about how organizations respond to diversity disclosure legislation. In this paper, we study the introduction of diversity disclosure legislation in the European Union that mandates corporate diversity disclosures, and we analyze how 30 large German companies disclose diversity in their annual reports. Drawing on institutional theory and Oliver’s (1991) seminal work on strategic responses to institutional processes, our analysis reveals four mandatory reporting responses: dismissal, concealment, imitation, and transcendence. Overall, our findings show that although diversity has been institutionalized into organizational environments by the European Union through legislative action, organizational responses vary, from resistance to passive conformity or proactive compliance. With these findings, our study adds to the emergent diversity accounting literature, and we conclude by highlighting implications of our work for policymakers, managers, and researchers. Data Availability: Data are available from the public sources cited in the text.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)123-138
Number of pages16
JournalAccounting Horizons
Volume38
Issue number1
Publication statusPublished - Mar 2024
Peer-reviewedYes

External IDs

ORCID /0000-0002-0958-5514/work/170107588

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Keywords

  • compliance, diversity, diversity disclosure legislation, institutional theory, nonfinancial reporting, resistance