A Qualitative Model of the Firm’s Sustainability Reporting(SR) Requirements in the Iranian Capital Market, Inspired by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) Standards

The paper primarily aims to provide a qualitative model of the company's sustainability reporting requirements in the Iranian capital market, inspired by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) standards. The study population can be divided into three general groups for quantitative data analysis: (1) industry experts, (2) public stakeholders, and (3) academic experts. Finally, after the distribution of 200 instruments, the sample size equals 180 research experts, sampling methods (judgmental) and snowball sampling. The data collected is related to the period between the winter of 2022 and the spring of 2023. The research data analysis method is "content analysis" in the MAXQDA environment. One of the main findings of the research is that the qualitative model of SR in Iran's capital market includes the main variables such as management of the company's legal and regulatory environment in terms of leadership and governance requirements in SR; Health and safety of human capital in human capital requirements of SR; stakeholders' performance Disclosure of the most crucial company performance criteria in the stakeholders' performance of the management's interpretive report; The flexibility of the business model based on costs in the economic requirements of the business model and innovation in SR; customer welfare was presented based on the promotion of education and training in the social capital requirements of SR and the management of energy and fuel consumption in the environmental requirements of SR. The current research is innovative in various aspects. First, the recent research is considered innovative in terms of subject matter. According to the compilation of international GRI standards of 2018, the SASB of 2019, the conceptual framework of integrated reporting of 2016 at the international level and the interpretive reports of the management of companies admitted to the Tehran Stock Exchange in 2016, and the obligation of publishers to disclose the details of energy consumption approved since November 2021 efforts to examine the relationship between the financial and non-financial aspects of the sustainability of each type of this reporting thoroughly seem necessary. Also, this paper tries to address all the critical criteria of economic, environmental, and social performance (KPI) of the SR of the world and Iran. Finally, presenting the SR model of companies takes the first step in providing professional sustainability reports in Iran.