Who’s in and who’s out? Reading stakeholders and priority issues from sustainability reports in Turkey

Abstract

This research aims to discover trends regarding stakeholders in sustainability reports. It questions the patterns or trends in addressing stakeholders, based on the assumption that the more a stakeholder is mentioned, the more importance is attached to it. Quantitative content analysis was conducted on a dataset of 179 sustainability reports published between 2004 and 2019 by 26 companies traded in Borsa Istanbul. All stakeholders disclosed in the sustainability reports were coded to create lists and groups, and the changes in stakeholder lists over time were presented. The research identified 102 stakeholders classified into 16 groups. The categorization is a crucial step in the stakeholder identification process as it reveals the hierarchy between stakeholders. By applying a time-series analysis, it was found that companies increasingly valued their employees, making occupational health and safety, diversity and equal opportunity, and talent management as top strategic issues in the Turkish context. This study makes a unique contribution to both the existing stakeholder literature and sustainability reporting within the Turkish context. It offers a pioneering longitudinal analysis of long-term stakeholder representation for listed companies in Turkey, breaking new ground in this area of research.