Sustainable development goals: investigation of the driving forces underlying the narratives in integrated reports

Purpose
This study aims to examine the sustainability-integrated reporting practices of United Arab Emirates (UAE) listed companies, focusing on the comprehensiveness of narrative disclosures, their determinants and how a recent global event influenced sustainable development goals (SDGs) reporting.

Design/methodology/approach
Using all publicly available integrated reports of listed companies on the Dubai Financial Market and Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange over the period 2018–2023, this paper first compiles SDG scores for the sample firms using computational linguistic techniques to identify specific characteristics of sustainability reports. Then, this paper uses a generalized least squares model to study the main factors behind the extent of sustainability disclosure in the published integrated reports.

Findings
The findings provide evidence that the volume of SDG-related information disclosed in integrated reports is significantly and positively correlated to: government ownership, foreign ownership, board independence, share of foreign directors in the board room, percentage of female directors setting in the board of directors, financial performance (measured by return on equities) and negatively correlated to firm leverage.

Research limitations/implications
The paper contributes to corporate reporting literature in several ways. First, while existing research primarily focuses on financial disclosures in business reports, the analysis examines sustainability-specific data and provides a comprehensive review of sustainability narratives. Second, this paper advances the current understanding of factors driving SDG reporting, which may help investors make informed decisions when targeting socially responsible investments.

Originality/value
This study makes several novel contributions. First, it provides pioneering empirical evidence on SDGs reporting practices in UAE-listed companies, addressing a significant research gap in emerging markets’ sustainability disclosure. Second, it uniquely examines how the recent global event influenced SDGs reporting practices, offering valuable insights into corporate sustainability communication during crisis periods. Third, by investigating the interplay between ownership structures, board characteristics and SDGs reporting in the UAE context, the study provides new perspectives on how institutional features of emerging markets shape sustainability reporting practices.