Do institutional pressures influence online social and environmental disclosure in Italian healthcare organizations?

Abstract

Drawing on Oliver’s strategic responses framework, this paper provides fresh insights into how Italian public healthcare organizations strategically respond to different institutional pressures on social and environmental disclosure practices. In particular, the study aims to determine how four main attributes linked to geographical location, type, size and political ideology can influence healthcare organizations’ disclosure behaviour. Based on Patten et al.'s coding scheme, a content analysis was performed manually on the official websites of 180 Italian public healthcare organizations, and an ordinary least squares regression model was estimated to test the research hypotheses. The research findings indicate that Italian public healthcare organizations are more prone to disclosing social information than environmental information. Also, Italian local health authorities in southern regions governed by left-wing parties tend to disclose more social and environmental information than other healthcare organizations. Informed by Oliver’s framework, these organizations have adopted a compromise strategy by prioritizing the disclosure of social information to meet the demands of their most powerful stakeholders.

Points for practitioners

Our results are of special interest for regulators and policymakers as they can be influential actors in the process of enforcing regulations by extending mandatory sustainability disclosure requirements for healthcare organizations. Also, standard-setters can be relevant actors in the development of a common reporting framework for the reporting of social and environmental information.