Universitatea Babeş - Bolyai. Facultatea de Ştiinţe Politice, Administrative şi ale Comunicării
Abstract
This paper examines the sustainability transparency
of governments, i.e., the disclosure
of information on the sustainability of their actions.
To do so, we identify contributory factors
to the online disclosure of environmental, social,
economic and general information by local governments
in Nordic countries. Linear regression
analysis was used to identify factors infl uencing
the online dissemination of government information
on sustainability; a factor analysis, as a
precursor to linear regression, led us to reduce
14 explanatory variables to four factors: fi nancial
risk, demography, professional qualifi cations and
local government resources.
The results obtained show that local fi -
nancial priorities have a greater impact on the
sustainability-related content of governmental
websites than does concern for the needs of the
population. Furthermore, an organization’s disclosure
of its fi nancial risks, together with greater
awareness of stakeholders’ demands, could promote
transparency in the fi eld of environmental,
social and economic sustainability, while local
demographic characteristics could foster the
publication of information on environmental sustainability.This study was carried out with the
assistance of a research project funded by the Regional
Government of Andalusia (Ref. P11-SEJ-7700) and that of
two projects funded by the National Research Plan, Nos.
ECO2010-17463-ECON and ECO2010-20522-ECON