Journal ArticleDOI
Revisiting the Relation Between Environmental Performance and Environmental Disclosure: An Empirical Analysis
TLDR
In this article, the relationship between corporate environmental performance and environmental disclosure was investigated by testing economics-based theories of voluntary disclosure using a more rigorous research design, and they found a positive association between environmental performance with the extent of discretionary environmental disclosures.Abstract:
Previous empirical evidence provided mixed results on the relationship between corporate environmental performance and environmental disclosures. We revisit this relation by testing economics based theories of voluntary disclosure using a more rigorous research design. In particular, we improve on the prior literature by focusing on purely voluntary environmental disclosures and by developing two reliable environmental performance measures using actual toxic emissions and waste management data. We also develop a content analysis index based on the Global Reporting Initiative sustainability reporting guidelines to assess the extent of discretionary disclosures in environmental and social responsibility reports. This index better captures firm disclosures related to its commitment to protect the environment than the indices employed by prior studies. Using a sample of 191 firms from the five most polluting industries in the U.S., we find a positive association between environmental performance and the extent of discretionary environmental disclosures. The result is consistent with the predictions of the economics based voluntary disclosure theory.read more
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Determinants of Sustainability Reporting: A Review of Results, Trends, Theory, and Opportunities in an Expanding Field of Research
Rüdiger Hahn,Michael Kühnen +1 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors provide a review of 178 articles dating from 1999 to 2011 from journals related to business, management, and accounting to identify what determinants of sustainability reporting are examined in the literature and to identify (in)consistencies, gaps, and opportunities for future research.
Journal ArticleDOI
Responding to Public and Private Politics: Corporate Disclosure of Climate Change Strategies
TL;DR: In this article, the conditions under which firms participate in this endeavor are explored, and it is shown that shareholder actions and regulatory threats are likely to prime firms to adopt practices consistent with the aims of a broader social movement.
Journal ArticleDOI
Green Governance: Boards of Directors’ Composition and Environmental Corporate Social Responsibility:
TL;DR: This article evaluated the relationship between boards of directors' composition and environmental corporate social responsibility (ECSR) by integrating literatures on board composition and individual differences in attitudes toward and information about environmental issues, and found that a higher proportion of outside board directors is associated with more favorable ECSR and higher KLD strengths scores.
Journal ArticleDOI
Greenwash: Corporate Environmental Disclosure Under Threat of Audit
TL;DR: This paper developed an economic model of greenwash, in which a firm strategically discloses environmental information and a non-governmental organization (NGO) may audit and penalize the firm for failing to fully disclose its environmental impacts.
Journal ArticleDOI
Does it Really Pay to Be Green? Determinants and Consequences of Proactive Environmental Strategies
TL;DR: This article showed that firms with superior environmental performance have more resources and enjoy better financial performance subsequently, while firms with poor relative environmental performance face resource constraints and their financial performance deteriorates further.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI
Theory of the firm: Managerial behavior, agency costs and ownership structure
TL;DR: In this article, the authors draw on recent progress in the theory of property rights, agency, and finance to develop a theory of ownership structure for the firm, which casts new light on and has implications for a variety of issues in the professional and popular literature.
Journal ArticleDOI
Information Asymmetry, Corporate Disclosure and the Capital Markets: A Review of the Empirical Disclosure Literature
TL;DR: Corporate disclosure is critical for the functioning of an efficient capital market as mentioned in this paper, and firms provide disclosure through regulated financial reports, including the financial statements, footnotes, management discussion and analysis, and other regulatory filings.
Journal ArticleDOI
Information asymmetry, corporate disclosure, and the capital markets: A review of the empirical disclosure literature $
Paul M. Healy,Krishna G. Palepu +1 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors provide a framework for analyzing managers' reporting and disclosure decisions in a capital markets setting, and identify key research questions and key researchquestions, concluding that current research has generated a number of useful insights.
Journal ArticleDOI
The investment opportunity set and corporate financing, dividend, and compensation policies☆
Clifford W. Smith,Ross L. Watts +1 more
TL;DR: The authors examine explanations for corporate financing-, dividend-, and compensation-policy choices and find that contracting theories are more important in explaining cross-sectional variation in observed financial, dividend, and compensation policies than either tax-based or signaling theories.
Journal Article
Theory of the Firm: Managerial Behavior, Agency Costs and Ownership Structure
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors integrate elements from the theory of agency, property rights and finance to develop a theory of the ownership structure of the firm and define the concept of agency costs, show its relationship to the separation and control issue, investigate the nature of the agency costs generated by the existence of debt and outside equity, demonstrate who bears costs and why and investigate the Pareto optimality of their existence.