Playing to which audience? Textual analysis of standalone sustainability reports in the South African mining sector

Abstract

We explore narrative styles of 50 standalone sustainability reports for the years 2016 to 2019 published by South African mining companies. Our analyses using computer-aided narrative analysis tools reveal that readability is very low, and optimism and commonality are the most prevalent narrative tones. We also investigate whether the intended audience is associated with differences in the readability and narrative tone by comparing reports of companies included (excluded) in the FTSE/JSE Responsible Investment (RI) index. We find that the more sophisticated audience of reports by companies included in the RI index is associated with even lower readability. These reports are also less optimistically phrased than those of companies not included in the RI index. We contribute to the theory by demonstrating that RI investors and ESG rating agencies may temper companies’ tendencies to manage impressions in sustainability reports. We also contribute by placing the study in South Africa, an emerging economy.