FAMILY BUSINESS AND SUSTAINABILITY COMMUNICATION

Family-owned businesses are significant contributors to the global economy, but their sustainability practices and communication remain under-researched. This study aims to fill that gap by answering three research questions: (a) Which stakeholder group is most commonly addressed in family firms’ sustainability communications? (b) Which sustainability issues do family firms focus on most in their communications? (c) How do family firms integrate their family-ownership in their sustainability communications? Using stakeholder theory and corporate social responsibility (CSR), and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) frameworks, the study will conduct a qualitative content analysis of sustainability reports from eleven family-owned firms. The results reveal that employees are the most commonly addressed stakeholder group, followed by community, customers/consumers, and suppliers. Investors are rarely directly addressed. In terms of sustainability issues, family firms mostly focus on social factors, followed by environmental and governance factors. The study also finds that not all family firms actively communicate their ‘familiness’ in their sustainability reports; those that do tend to integrate it into communication about social or governance factors. This study has practical implications for family-firms and their sustainability communications strategies as well as advancing the field of family business research and sustainable development by applying modern theoretical approaches to analyse sustainability communication.