CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 154Corporate Social Responsibility ReportingSustainable Finance and Green BondsManagement and Organizational Studies

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 64 of the 65 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Stakeholder perspectives on a financial sector legitimation process: The case of NGOs and the Equator Principles

Open access
O'Sullivan, Niamh, O'Dwyer, Brendan·2009·Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal
DOI 10.1108/09513570910955443
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present an in‐depth, context rich, and stakeholder‐focused perspective on the legitimation dynamics surrounding the initiation and evolution of one of the key financial sector environmental and social responsibility initiatives in recent years, the Equator Principles. Design/methodology/approach: The paper draws on a combination of in‐depth interviews with non‐governmental organization (NGO) leaders, extensive documentary analysis and participant observation in order to understand and explain, from an NGO perspective, the use of the Equator Principles as a central element in an attempt to legitimise financial institutions' project finance activities. Key aspects of legitimacy theory are used to theoretically frame the analysis. Findings: The paper reveals and analyses the process through which campaigning NGOs conferred a nominal level of legitimacy on financial institutions' project finance activities. It proceeds to unveil how and why this attained legitimacy unravelled. A perceived lack of accountability at an institutional, organisational and individual project level is identified as a central reason for this reduction in legitimacy. Research limitations/implications: The paper primarily focuses on one side of the story of the dynamics of the legitimation process underpinning the evolution of the Equator Principles until 2006. Future research could focus on obtaining and theorising financial institution perspectives on the Equator Principles' development, implementation, and progression as well as analysing developments beyond 2006. Originality/value: The paper advances our understanding of the dynamics of legitimation processes. These dynamics are studied from the perspective of a key “relevant public” thereby prioritising perceptions that are largely absent from corporate social accountability research seeking to empirically inform legitimacy theory.

Overview

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1108/09513570910955443

Cites

64 of 64 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Verification

Claims the paper makes

We couldn’t retrieve this paper’s full text, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Citations

Cites

Show all 65 references

Research works printed but not linked: 6

  1. Ethical Corporation (1984), “What happened, and when”, Special Report: Financial Sector Responsibility, London, November, pp. 18‐21.
  2. Friends of the Earth Netherlands (Milieudefensie) (2006), People, Plant, Palm Oil? A Review of the Oil Palm and Forest Policies adopted by Dutch Banks, Amsterdam.
  3. Hogner, R.H. (1982), “Corporate social reporting: eight decades of development at US steel”, Research in Corporate Performance and Policy, Vol. 4, pp. 243‐50.
  4. Newton, A. (2006), “A convenient truce”, Ethical Corporation, Special Report: Financial sector responsibility, London, November, pp. 14‐15.
  5. Ostrovsky, A. (2006), “Russia to extend probe of Sakhalin 2”, The Financial Times, Vol. 26, p. 17.
  6. Webb, T. and Russell, J. (2006), “A point of principle”, Ethical Corporation, Special Report: Financial sector Responsibility, London, November, pp. 34‐5.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

See all

Metadata

Authors
O'Sullivan, N., & O'Dwyer, B.
Venue
Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal
Publisher
Emerald
Published
2009-05-08
Volume
22
Issue
4
Pages
553-587
ISSN
0951-3574 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1108/09513570910955443
OpenAlex
W1587407128
Cited by
154
References
65
Citations by year
2026: 2 · 2025: 7 · 2024: 8 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 6 · 2020: 8 · 2019: 15 · 2018: 7 · 2017: 17 · 2016: 11 · 2015: 15 · 2014: 11 · 2013: 15 · 2012: 9
FWCI
23.03
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Accounting Auditing & Accountability Journal (publishedVersion)
  • UvA-DARE (University of Amsterdam) (publishedVersion, other-oa)
  • Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
  • Research Explorer (The University of Manchester) (submittedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Strategy and Management › Corporate Social Responsibility Reporting
  • Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Finance › Sustainable Finance and Green Bonds
  • Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management › Management and Organizational Studies
Keywords
Equator Principles, legitimation, legitimacy theory, stakeholder perspectives, non-governmental organizations, project financing, financial institutions, environmental and social responsibility, accountability

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review