Promoting Sustainability Assurance Missions in the European Directive Regulatory Context
La promotion des missions d'assurance de durabilité dans le contexte réglementaire de la directive européenne
Résumé
(Cheng et al., 2015). In France, certain companies are subject by regulation to the implementation of SA in
particular with the transposition of European Directive 2014/95/EU into national law. SA mission is a process
by which an independent third-party organization (ITO) assures companies’ nonfinancial information.
Although this assignment is mostly performed by professional accountants, other providers can perform this
assignment (Cohen and Simnett, 2015). In this research, the authors are interested in strategies for legitimizing
the SA missions of independent third-party bodies. Assurance providers use their website to promote their
missions. How do independent third-party bodies legitimize their assurance mission in a regulatory context
relating to European Directive 2014/95/EU?
Design/methodology/approach – The authors carried out a discursive analysis of the promotion of SA
missions on independent third-party body websites. A content analysis was performed on the collected
textual data.
Findings – The results highlight different strategies for promoting the implementation of assurance missions
aimed at legitimizing their new skills. Nevertheless, it appears that the providers make very little reference to
the quality of nonfinancial information as the objective of SA missions.
Research limitations/implications – The research made it possible to study the promotion of SA through
the websites of ITOs. Nevertheless, it would have been interesting to be able to question the ITOs to study their
perceptions on their new SA missions.
Practical implications – The research enriches the literature on SA, particularly in a regulatory context
relating to European Directive 2014/95/EU. It sheds light on the different strategies put in place by the
providers appointed by regulations. From a managerial point of view, the study may allow ITOs to adapt their
communication to promote extra-financial missions relating to the European Directive and thus to attract new
clients. Finally at the institutional and regulatory level, this research highlights the need to put in place a precise
framework relating to extra-financial assurance missions. This may also encourage countries not subject to the
verification obligation to introduce such an obligation into their national law.
Originality/value – This is the first study to examine the promotion of SA practice by providers. In addition,
very few studies have looked at this practice in a regulatory context and in particular within the framework of
the European directive.