Private sustainability engagement in an emerging economy

Purpose This study critically examines how private sustainability engagement functions as a form of dialogic accountability when Nordic institutional investors interact with publicly listed companies in a state-dominated emerging economy, challenging the implicit universalism of consensus-seeking engagement models. Design/methodology/approach The study employs qualitative content analysis of Nordic investor engagement reports documenting extended interactions with Egyptian financial and telecommunication companies. Legitimacy theory, neo-institutional theory and dialogic accountability provide an integrated lens for examining information exchange and corporate answerability. Findings Private engagements centre on political connections and human rights risks, with documented response patterns consistent with a prioritisation of political licence to operate over substantive answerability to international investors. The documented engagements record evidential burdens preventing independent verification. The response patterns across both cases constitute dialogic deadlock – a structural ceiling where genuine accountability exchange is foreclosed. Originality/value Empirically, the study provides an in-depth qualitative content analysis of investor-side engagement reports, documenting the sustainability information Nordic investors seek in two Egyptian private engagements and the patterns of corporate response. Theoretically, it proposes political licence and audience primacy as concepts for interpreting the documented exchanges and specifies the contextual conditions under which audience hierarchy may shift toward audience primacy. Conceptually, it theorises dialogic deadlock as a structural outcome arising where legitimacy incentives prove insufficient and the preconditions for genuine dialogic accountability are constitutively absent.