Voicu Dan Dragomir

Sustainability reporting and assurance requirements are reshaping accountants' professional profiles. Yet empirical evidence on how these accountability demands translate into specific role configurations remains limited. To address this gap, this study draws on role theory to examine how accountants' responsibilities and required competencies have evolved in response to sustainability reporting and assurance requirements, driven by the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), while building on traditional accounting expertise. Using a hybrid (inductive‐deductive) content analysis approach complemented by clustering techniques, we analysed 139 sustainability‐related accounting job advertisements collected in 2024 across 18 European Union countries. The findings reveal the emergence of complex roles and a broad set of competencies, suggesting that organizations are incorporating sustainability work mainly by retaining familiar professional identities while changing the responsibilities and competencies attached to them. The study advances our understanding of the evolving profiles and expertise of accountants in the context of sustainability reporting and assurance and provides insights for researchers, practitioners and professional accountancy organisations.

This single case study examines how the H&M Group, a large fashion multinational, uses open innovation (OI) to support the transition towards a circular business model. Although collaborations are recognized as key to advancing circularity, limited empirical evidence exists on how co‐creative OI processes drive circular practices across the value chain. Using adaptive cycle theory (the panarchy model) and institutional theory, the study analyses H&M Group's involvement in circular and collaborative innovation from 2010 to 2025 through a mixed‐methods approach, including case study analysis, content analysis, financial data and market trends. The findings show that H&M Group's participation in circular OI initiatives targets seven main categories of collaborations in a nonlinear process shaped by recursive interactions between institutional factors and financial and competitive pressures. The research demonstrates the existence of a full adaptive cycle of circular OI participation, offering insights for researchers, industry actors and policymakers.

The fashion industry has become a major global polluter due to poor resource management and large quantities of waste downstream in its value chain. To prevent these impacts, the adoption of circular economy (CE) principles has become the main strategic priority of companies in this sector, guided by frameworks such as the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the European Union’s Circular Economy strategy. Our study explores how corporate narratives about circularity evolved over time, using the Swedish multinational H&M Group as a case study. The research is guided by a mixed methodological approach that combines historical analysis of sustainability reports and press releases with text mining techniques (word frequency and topic modelling using Latent Dirichlet Allocation). Covering the period 2013–2025, the research traces the evolution of CE-focused narratives and corporate strategies. The findings reveal a cyclical narrative where topics such as “impacts”, “materials”, “products”, “water”, “chemicals”, “innovation”, “customers” and “circular change” replace each other at the forefront of sustainability strategy. By integrating issue life cycle theory with text analysis, the study contributes to a better understanding of how reporting can become a strategic tool in the transition toward circularity. The results offer insights for policymakers, industry practitioners, and civil society regarding sustainability themes and their evolution.

This study examines the relationship between environmental, social, and governance (ESG) scores and credit ratings across regions and industrial sectors using a dataset of 188 companies from Europe and the US (2013–2023). Employing ordered probit regression and Granger causality tests, the analysis reveals that, in Europe, higher ESG scores—particularly in human rights and governance—are associated with lower credit ratings, while in the US, resource use and shareholder engagement positively influence credit ratings. Sector-specific effects highlight the importance of environmental performance in healthcare and controversy management in consumer sectors. These findings emphasize the need for region- and sector-specific approaches when integrating ESG factors into credit risk assessments.

The present paper examines the social dimension of business models with a particular focus on human rights, aligning the analysis with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 5 (Gender Equality), 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth), and 10 (Reduced Inequalities). This study explores how three major European companies – Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy SE (LVMH), Industria de Diseno Textil SA (INDITEX) and H&M Hennes & Mauritz AB (H&M) address social issues within their business models, as reflected in their annual reports and publicly available statements. These companies were selected based on their size, specifically the number of employees. Recent literature on social responsibility in the apparel sector has increasingly investigated the consequences of poor applicability of policies and the lack of understanding human rights, which have led to negative outcomes for companies, industry, workers and communities. Despite this, there is a notable gap in research regarding how companies report their actions, especially when aligning their activities with the SDGs. This paper aims to provide a comparative analysis of major industry actors’ commitments and identify patterns in the companies’ reporting. The methodology of the study involves text mining techniques, conducted through R Studio statistical software. This analysis focused on the frequency of key terms, as well as bigrams and trigrams to create an understanding of the patterns of reporting and how the narratives reflect companies’ real efforts. The findings reveal various focus points, with each of the companies demonstrating unique approaches. This paper contributes to the field by offering an assessment of social impact reporting and provides recommendations for a better, transparent and heightened responsibility toward the 2030 Agenta and activities that respect human rights in the Apparel industry.

This article extensively examines the correlation between environmental, social, and governance (ESG) scores and credit ratings across diverse geographic regions and industrial sectors. The study reveals that despite obtaining higher ESG scores, European corporations frequently receive lower credit ratings for combined ESG scores and components such as Human Rights and Governance Pillar scores. Conversely, Resource Use and Shareholder Engagement positively correlate with credit ratings in non-European regions. The analysis of the sectors demonstrates that superior environmental performance positively impacts credit ratings in the Healthcare sector, while effective controversy management is essential in the consumer defense sector. The study delves into the components of ESG, emphasizing that different factors influence credit ratings differently across regions and sectors. Utilizing a dataset from 2013 to 2023, the research examines 188 companies from Europe and non-Europe with consistent ESG scores. An ordered probit model is employed to assess the influence of ESG ratings on credit ratings while accounting for control variables such as leverage, size, profitability, sales growth, and dividend yield. The findings indicate that incorporating ESG factors into credit rating assessments necessitates a region and sector-specific approach. Policymakers, regulators, and investors must consider these differences when making decisions. The study suggests further research on the role of stakeholder pressure in the ESG-credit rating relationship. This investigation aims to provide constructive insights into corporate strategy, policy decisions, and investment practices, empowering the audience with practical knowledge.

The purpose of this article is to investigate the development of sustainable business models (SBMs) of renewable energy companies. To assess the degree of alignment with the European Union Taxonomy for sustainable activities (Regulation 2020/852), the European Green Deal, and the Sustainable Development Goals of five renewable energy companies—Ørsted, Engie, Vattenfall, Iberdrola, and Enel—we have used their sustainability reports from 2023. We have analyzed how each company contributes to the EU climate targets and strategy to achieve a 55% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and net zero by 2050. The results showed the challenges faced by each company in switching from traditional fossil fuel models to renewable models. Due to regulatory constraints and different organizational structures, each company has adopted a specific SBM with respect to power generation and the green transition. The advantages and disadvantages of these SBMs were identified and described comparatively to help regulators, policymakers, and industry associations improve sustainability reporting for the energy sector.