Organized hypocrisy and organizational frontage in corporate sustainability reports

Abstract

Speeches on sustainability are becoming a ubiquitous subject in right level business meetings and summits of global leaders. Even though, a significant gap persists between the discourse of business sustainability and practice. In an attempt to further understanding about these Corporate Sustainability Reports, the use of a more nuanced theoretical insight is proposed, through the lens of Organized Hypocrisy and Organizational Frontage. This way, it is assumed that the social and institutional pressures demand that the companies get involved in Organized Hypocrisy and develop Organizational Frontage, seriously limiting the prospects for actual disclosures of sustainability reports. To illustrate the fact, this study aimed to analyze the influence of social and institutional pressures on the content of the sustainability disclosures as regards consistency between speech and action of Samarco. The findings display that, the case of Fundão’s dam rupture, highlights the need to add to the business model of companies real aspects related to sustainability and risk management. Understand the impact that the economic activity of organizations can cause to society, environment and economy, must be a priority in decision-making, so that the risks are fully mapped inserted and mitigated, in order to prevent negative externalities inherent in business.