Ecological objectives in environmental reports usually promise a high degree of environme nta l awareness in a company's activities. Several studies have already highlighted that most companies do not keep their promises since stakeholders' expectations and a company's capabilities for internal adjustments do not match all the time. Thus, a company might use strategic reporting in order not to endanger its legitimacy. However, no study so far has demonstrated how companies use different legitimacy strategies in reporting their environmental objectives over time. To achieve this in our study, we focus primarily on findings from legitimacy theory in combination with the legitimacy strategies suggested by Lindblo m (2010). To test our theoretical framework empirically, we analyze 260 corporate environme nta l reports between the years 2000 to 2014 of German DAX companies by coding all disclosed objectives within these reports. Based on this longitudinal approach we are able to identify reporting patterns of the different companies that provide insights into those companies' environmental reporting legitimacy strategies. Overall, this study contributes to research on voluntary disclosure by showing that a comprehensive analysis of the reporting pattern of disclosed objectives allows the identification of certain legitimacy strategies.
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