Sustainability reporting and identification of criteria affecting it from the point of view of experts with a fuzzy approach

Sustainability reporting is a tool by which companies can publish non-financial aspects of the company's performance in society in addition to disclosing financial performance and legitimize their activities. In this research, the effect of stakeholder pressure criteria, political communication and corporate governance mechanisms on sustainability management is investigated.

The current research is applied in terms of purpose and qualitative in terms of implementation process. In order to collect information in the field of theoretical foundations and background of the subject, library resources, articles, scientific databases were used, and for data collection, a questionnaire was used using the Delphi method. Excel version 2013 software was used for data analysis.

After data analysis, environmentally sensitive industries, employees, consumers, and floating stocks were selected as effective measures of stakeholder pressure for sustainability management. Also, the dependence of the board of directors on the government, foreign sales, stock market value and geographical location have been among the criteria influencing political communication. For corporate governance mechanisms, the non-commissioned members of the board of directors, institutional ownership, management shares and the type of auditor were chosen as the effective criteria of sustainability management.

From the point of view of experts, selected criteria for stakeholder pressure, political communication and corporate governance mechanisms affect sustainability reporting.