This course provides an introduction into sustainability disclosure research based on a thorough discussion of the literature and a research project, which covers the analysis of a specific research question. The research questions relate to up-to-date problems and open questions in the field. The course starts with a general introduction into accounting research and especially sustainability disclosure research to provide students with a basis for reading and understanding academic literature in this area. Next, papers on sustainability disclosure are assigned to groups of students that are then presented and discussed in the plenum (group members have to actively engage in both, discussion and presentation). These papers help students to better contextualize their research project. The course then continues with a hands-on approach into the retrieval and quantitative/qualitative analysis of data from different data sources to provide students with the relevant skills for carrying out their own research project.

Professional skills:

• Be able to describe the landscape of sustainability disclosure research.
• Be able to critically reflect and discuss the challenges, problems and shortcomings in sustainability disclosure research.
• Explain the potential reasons for and consequences of sustainability reporting, including the underlying theories and their limits.

Social and personal skills:

• Be able to collaborate effectively with a team of fellow students.
• Be able to structure problems adequately and develop potential solutions to these problems, including critical discussions and reflections on such solutions.
• Be able to communicate in the classroom clearly, concisely, and logically.

​​​​​​​Skills in scientific work:

• Be able to use adequate methodologies to describe and analyze a defined problem and develop potential solutions, including critical reflections.
• Be able to understand and contextualize sustainability accounting research papers.
• Be able to critically reflect on specific research settings.
• Be able to retrieve and aggregate data from different data sources (first steps).
• Be able to analyze data and interpret the results with respect to specific research questions.
• Be able to draft a written report on the main findings for a specific research question.

Prüfungsimmanente Lehrveranstaltung: 80% minimum. 

This course is research oriented. After providing students with the relevant theoretical knowledge, students are expected to actively participate in class and discuss the contents and methods of the selected research papers. In addition, the course includes a hands-on session on data retrieval, matching and analyses of data that provides the basis for carrying out research projects. A research question is assigned to each group of students.

(1) Quiz (20 %): Questions on the course.

(2) Paper Presentation (30 %): Groups of students are assigned to present and discuss specific research papers.

(3) Term Project (40 %): Groups of students have to submit a term paper covering the findings of the assigned research project.

(4) Participation (10 %): asessed based on clicker questions.

Students have ideally successfully completed the first course of the specialization "Sustainability Disclosure".

Please log in with your WU account to use all functionalities of read!t. For off-campus access to our licensed electronic resources, remember to activate your VPN connection connection. In case you encounter any technical problems or have questions regarding read!t, please feel free to contact the library at readinglists@wu.ac.at.