Towards a dynamic approach to materiality: A lesson from COVID-19

ABSTRACT

Over the past few years, there has been an increasing demand for non-financial information as stakeholders become more aware of the need to reconsider the global economy. This has led academics and policymakers to discuss the importance of companies disclosing their non-financial information to effectively engage with citizens and stakeholders. Recently, there has been a debate about moving away from traditional accountability practices based on annual disclosure of non-financial information towards a more dynamic approach that involves continuous engagement with stakeholders. Social media has been highlighted as an effective tool to achieve this, and the COVID-19 pandemic has further emphasised the need for effective communication with stakeholders, which has led to the adoption of social media to share information. This paper aims to empirically evaluate the accountability practices of large Italian organisations during the pandemic by analysing data extracted from Twitter, providing new insights into the impacts of pandemics on stakeholder engagement practices.

KEYWORDS:

• COVID-19
• materiality
• big data
• dialogic accounting
• social media

Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge the valuable contributions of Leonardo Rinaldi and Giovanna Michelon to this scientific article. Their insights and suggestions have enriched our research. We would also like to express our appreciation to the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments and suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 http://www.consob.it/web/area-pubblica/soggetti-che-hanno-pubblicato-la-dnf.