Investigating the antecedents of Sustainable Development Goals disclosure via social media: Evidence from water companies

Abstract

This study extends academic knowledge on the sustainable development goal (SDG)disclosure practices of water companies via social media. The ultimate paper's goal isto examine the possible determinants of such disclosure practices. A manual contentanalysis was conducted on a sample of 64 Spanish water companies' official Twitteraccounts to determine the SDG disclosure level. Based on legitimacy theory, differ-ent regression models were estimated to identify possible financial and governanceexplanatory factors of the level of SDG disclosure provided by Spanish water compa-nies via Twitter. Results reveal that Spanish water companies are still slow to realisethe potential of social media to increase their engagement with stakeholders andlegitimise their position in society concerning their commitment to achieving SDGs.More profitable companies with less government ownership and larger boards appearmore prone to disclose SDG information.