The existential need for more sustainable production and consumption has attracted substantial scholarly interest, which has focused on the positive outcomes of corporate sustainability. Negative side‐effects have been largely neglected. This study contributes (1) by synthesizing past research into such negative side‐effects from a diverse set of business disciplines; (2) by conceptualizing—for the first time—unintended negative side‐effects of product and service sustainability; and (3) by developing a research agenda guiding researchers in addressing the most important knowledge gaps. The synthesis of 94 articles identifies three main cognitive mechanisms (information elaboration, product perception bias, and self‐perception) and several emotionally aversive states (anxiety, shame, guilt, regret, distress, reduced enjoyment, frustration, discomfort, stress, and embarrassment) that are responsible for unintended negative side‐effects resulting from product and service sustainability. Immediate managerial implications from this study include the critical importance of simple corporate sustainable communication that does not require consumers to dedicate substantial cognitive resources. Important future research directions include the investigation of the effects of green hushing and the development and testing of practical ways to help companies to avoid the sustainability liability trap, which leads to reduced demand because of sustainable features of products or services.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explain how sustainability reporting and stakeholder engagement processes serve as vehicles of dialogic accounting (DA), a form of critical accounting that creates opportunities for stakeholders to express their opinions, and the influence of dialogic interactions on the content of sustainability reports. Design/methodology/approach: Content analysis is used to investigate reports published by 299 companies that have adopted Global Reporting Initiative guidelines. This paper studies how organizations engage stakeholders, the categories of stakeholders that are being addressed, the methods used to support stakeholder engagement, and other features of the stakeholder engagement process. Companies that disclose stakeholder perceptions, the difficulties met in engaging stakeholders, and actions aimed at creating opportunities for different groups of stakeholders to interact were subjects of discussion in a series of semi-structured interviews that focus on DA. Findings: Companies often commit themselves to two-way dialogue with their stakeholders, but fully developed frameworks for DA are rare. However, signs of DA emerged in the analysis, thus confirming that sustainability reporting can become a platform for DA systems if stakeholder engagement is effective. Originality/value: The findings contribute to the accounting literature by discussing if and how sustainability reporting and stakeholder engagement can serve as vehicles of DA. This is accomplished via a research design that is based on in-depth interviews and content analysis of various sustainability reports.