Sustainability reporting: The role of "Search", "Experience" and "Credence" information

Corporate sustainability reporting quality has been frequently criticised as being unbalanced, presenting an overly positive view or failing to address material issues. The purposeof this article is to provide a fresh explanation for poor quality sustainability reporting andto propose how quality issues may be addressed. The theoretical framework combines thelegitimacy and accountability perspectives using Akerlof's (1970) Market for Lemons theory. Akerlof's approach is extended by differentiating between three types of informationin sustainability reports namely search, experience and credence. The article concludes thatthe type of information must be considered when determining measures to improve report quality. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.