Financial and Sustainability Reporting A Structured Literature Review

In the context of institutional pressure and increasing stakeholders’ interest in sustainability reporting as a complementary dimension to financial reporting, the concerns of the academic environment are materializing through the development and integration of new paradigms in the specialized literature. From this perspective, this research answers the following questions: What was the research trend, research methods, but also theories regarding financial and sustainability reporting? What were the factors that generated changes in financial and sustainability reporting? What was the relationship between the requirements of financial and sustainability reporting frameworks and the main thematic directions of the academic literature? The research methodology is based on a structured literature review (SLR) that involved the identification and analysis of articles published in the period 2020–2024, coded based on conceptual and methodological criteria. The three-dimensional results of the research highlight: the evolution from predominantly theoretical contributions to empirical studies based on advanced econometric models and the use of a varied portfolio of theories; changes in financial and sustainability reporting are generated both by institutional and stakeholders’ pressures, as well as by the strengthening of the regulatory framework, especially at the European level; there is a convergence between the developments in the regulatory framework and the research directions in the specialized literature, with research focusing on dual materiality, information connectivity and the integration of financial reporting with sustainability reporting.