Governance, the pillar of sustainability practices, accounting and reporting: Insights from state-owned enterprises in an emerging economy

• Sustainability encompasses environmental, social, economic, and governance dimensions. • Research emphasizes ESG, but governance remains underexplored in sustainability studies. • This study examines governance sustainability in South African State-Owned Enterprises (Schedules 2 & 3B), between 2018 and 2022. • The 2021 Global Reporting Standards guided content analysis of SOE annual and governance reports. • Findings show fair governance reporting, strongest at board level, weakest in executive Sustainable Development roles. Sustainability is a term that encompasses environmental, social, governance, and economic factors. The contemporary academic discourse on sustainability, arguably made popular by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, indicates that much attention has been paid to environmental, social, and economic factors and less to the governance factor. In this regard, we extend institutional and stakeholder theories by exploring the governance and sustainability practices of Schedule 2 and Schedule 3B state-owned enterprises in South Africa between 2018 and 2022. We used a survey questionnaire, content analysis, and semi-structured interviews. Overall, the sampled SOEs’ governance sustainability reporting is fair, according to the findings. Out of the four governance sustainability metrics that were taken into consideration, the highest reporting was found for sustainability reporting of the highest governance (59%), which was followed by managing impacts on the economy, environment, and people (31%), which came before relevance of sustainable development (25%), and lastly, sustainable development role of executives (24%). Interviewees provided insights on potential explanations for the content analysis and survey findings.