BIOPATH profile portraits: Giovanna Michelon
Giovanna Michelon is Professor of Accounting at the Department of Economics and Management of the University of Padova (Italy), and Honorary Professor at the University of Bristol (UK). At the University of Gothenburg, she is currently holding an Erik Malmstens gästprofessur position and she is a researcher in Mistra BIOPATH WP2.
Professor Giovanna Michelon, University of Gothenburg (Erik Malmstens gästprofessur)
Her work has explored how corporate governance drives corporate social responsibility activities and reporting, and the role of sustainability information for market participants and other stakeholders. Recently, she is interested in investigating the role that finance plays for sustainability, and how sustainability reporting and sustainability disclosure regulation affects firm’s actual behavior and impacts.
What is currently going on in your research field?
I work in sustainability accounting and reporting, which studies how measurement, disclosure and assurance shape what organizations pay attention to and how they act. A key topic right now is how the wave of transparency mandates and reporting expectations influence what organizations actually do, and whether they drive real changes or symbolic compliance. I’m especially interested in how materiality, comparability and assurance are constructed, and what that means for managing social and environmental externalities.
How does your research align with the impact pathways in Mistra BIOPATH?
I bring an accounting and governance lens to biodiversity engagement. I study how reporting rules, standards and assurance expectations translate biodiversity impacts and dependencies into organizational routines—materiality assessments, targets, board oversight and incentives. This helps explain when transparency becomes an effective lever for change in corporate practices and value chains, and when it fails to shift decision-making or resource allocation.
Can you tell us about your research journey?
My academic path has been shaped by a long-standing interest in how governance and accounting systems affect accountability and performance. I have held academic roles in Italy and the UK, and I returned to the University of Padova in 2024 after several years as Professor of Accounting at the University of Bristol and previously at the University of Exeter. Across this journey, my research has consistently focused on sustainability disclosure and the organizational dynamics around it—spanning board-level drivers of sustainability strategies, disclosure quality, stakeholder engagement, and the broader consequences of reporting and assurance practices.
What do you see as additional values of working in an interdisciplinary research programme?
Interdisciplinary work is invaluable because biodiversity and sustainability problems cut across science, policy, accounting finance and organizational decision-making. Collaborating across disciplines helps me connect accounting ideas—measurement, materiality, assurance and incentives—to ecological realities and policy goals. It also improves how we frame questions and interpret evidence, making outputs more relevant for practitioners and regulators and more credible beyond our home disciplines.
In what ways do you interact with or collaborate with external stakeholders in your research?
I interact with external stakeholders through practitioner and policy dialogues on sustainability reporting, governance and assurance. This includes engagement with professional bodies and standard-setting discussions, contributing to consultations, and presenting research in practitioner forums. These exchanges keep the work grounded in implementation realities—how firms build reporting systems, how assurance is applied, and where transparency mandates create (or fail to create) incentives for substantive change.
https://sites.google.com/site/giovannamichelon/home
Recent Mistra BIOPATH publication:
V.Elliot, K. Jonäll, M. Paaranen, J. Bebbington, G. Michelon. 2024. Biodiversity reporting: standardization, materiality, and assurance.. Available at Science Direct: Biodiversity reporting: standardization, materiality, and assurance - ScienceDirect