Discursive construction of government influence on state-owned enterprise sustainability: a critical discourse analysis of South Korean SOEs' sustainability practice

While research on the government's influence on state-owned enterprises (SOE) sustainability practices has expanded, most studies have predominantly focused on "what" the government is doing rather than the "how" it exerts its influence. This emphasis has led to neglect of the discursive strategies the government employs to shape SOE sustainability agendas. This study addresses this gap by employing Fairclough's critical discourse analysis (CDA) across micro-, meso-, and macro-levels to explore how the South Korean government discursively constructs its influence on SOEs' sustainability reporting. The micro-level analysis examines textual features in 16 sustainability reports published by SOEs during 2017-2018, a critical period marked by the Moon Jae-In administration's enhanced emphasis on sustainability. At the meso-level, the study employs Dahan et al.'s (2015) stakeholder framework to identify governmental roles as "framework provider," "business partner," "interfering actor," and "advocate." The macro-level analysis contextualizes these findings within the broader sociopolitical landscape shaped by the 2017 policy aimed at strengthening SOEs' social value. This study contributes uniquely by revealing how discursive strategies reinforce government influence, exposing underlying ideological and institutional dynamics beyond conventional regulatory perspectives.