Assessing corporate environmental reporting motivations: differences between ‘close‐to‐market’ and ‘business‐to‐business’ companies

Haddock‐Fraser, Janet; Fraser, Iain

doi:10.1002/csr.147

Cited by 110 publications

(125 citation statements)

References 35 publications

(26 reference statements)

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“…Moreover, this study did not examine other variables that may infl uence the level of environmental disclosures, such as environmental performance; the country's cultural, historical and environmental factors; corporate governance structure; the company's strategic factors; organizational culture; foreign sales; the company's position in the value chain etc. In this sense, consistent with Haddock-Fraser and Fraser (2008), we believe that there may be factors other than those traditionally understood that infl uence the level of environmental disclosures that are under-researched and, therefore, need more attention from researchers. Finally, this study was focused on environmental information disclosed through the annual reports and, as McMurtrie (2005) pointed out, the annual report alone can give a partial picture of companies' environmental reporting practices.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 67%

Determinants of environmental disclosure in the annual reports of large companies operating in Portugal

Monteiro

Guzmán

2010

Corp Soc Responsibility Env

305

152

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Similarly to what has happened in other countries, since the early 1990s Portuguese companies have developed corporate environmental reporting practices in response to internal and external factors. This paper is based on empirical research directed to both the study of environmental reporting practices developed by Portuguese companies and the identification of the factors that explain the extent to which these companies disclose environmental information. This study focuses on the environmental disclosures made in the annual reports by a sample of 109 large fi rms operating in Portugal during the period 2002-04. Using the content analysis technique we have developed an index in order to assess the presence of the environmental disclosures in companies' annual reports and their breadth. Based on the extant literature, several characteristics relating to fi rms' attributes were selected and their infl uence on the level of environmental disclosure was tested empirically. The selected explanatory variables were fi rm size, industry membership, profi tability, foreign ownership, quotation on the stock market and environmental certifi cation. The results reveal that, in spite of the fact that the level of environmental information disclosed during the period 2002-04 is low, the extent of environmental disclosure has increased as well as the number of Portuguese companies that disclose environmental information. Moreover, the fi rm size and the fact that a company is listed on the stock market are positively related to the extent of environmental disclosure. This study adds to the international research on environmental disclosure by providing empirical data from a country, Portugal, where empirical evidence is still relatively unknown, extending the scope of the current understanding of the environmental reporting practices.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 67%

Determinants of environmental disclosure in the annual reports of large companies operating in Portugal

Monteiro

Guzmán

2010

Corp Soc Responsibility Env

305

152

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“…For instance, more environmental information is usually disclosed by firms from polluting intensive sectors (Brammer & Pavelin, 2008;Cho & Patten, 2007;Haddock-Fraser & Fraser, 2008) and high-profile industries (Lu & Abeysekera, 2014) due to facing more stringent stakeholders pressures for being perceived as environmentally damaging firms (González-Benito & González-Benito, 2005). In the next section, we focus on the relevance of belonging to a regulated or an unregulated sector for the environmental disclosure-related strategy.…”

Section: Stakeholder Theory and Environmental Disclosurementioning

confidence: 99%

Industries Regulation and Firm Environmental Disclosure: A Stakeholders’ Perspective on the Importance of Legitimation and International Activities

Delgado‐Márquez

Pedauga

Pozo

2015

Organization & Environment

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The potential negative environmental consequences of the activities of international firms has been scrutinized. In response to these pressures, international firms have started to disclose (voluntarily or not) environmental information in order to increase transparency and ensure legitimacy. While several factors have been pointed out as the drivers of such disclosing behavior, the role of industrial regulation has remained underesearched. To better understand this challenge, we rely on a sample of 1,150 international firms (top vs. nontop) worldwide from regulated and unregulated sectors. Our results suggest that unregulated firms disclose-to cope with higher stakeholders pressures-more environmental information than firms operating in regulated environments. Additionally, a firm's international position positively influences its environmental disclosure, but it does negatively and partially moderate the relationship between industrial regulation of the sector in which the firm operates and such firm's environmental disclosure. Our findings may also entail interesting contributions both for practitioners and scholars.

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“…T HE STUDY OF COMPANIES' VOLUNTARY DISCLOSURES, AS SOCIAL OR ENVIRONMENTAL REPORTING, TOGETHER WITH the factors explaining them are receiving a lot of attention in corporate social responsibility (CSR) literature (Belkaoui and Karpik, 1989;Roberts, 1992;Hackston and Milne, 1996;Archel and Lizarraga, 2001;Brammer and Pavelin, 2004b;McMurtrie, 2005;Brammer and Pavelin, 2006;Stanwick and Stanwick, 2006;Haddock-Fraser and Fraser, 2008;Monteiro and Aibar-Guzmán, 2009;Tagesson et al, 2009). Moreover, the past few years have seen a sharp increase in accountability pressures on companies, especially on multinational corporations (MNCs), which are confronted with a multitude of requests from shareholders and other stakeholders in different markets, markets that often have varying regulations and governance systems (Ite, 2004;Kolk, 2008).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Corporate social reporting for different audiences: the case of multinational corporations in Spain

Sotorrío

Sánchez

2009

Corp Soc Responsibility Env

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The objective of this research is twofold: fi rst, to analyze descriptively the type of social information disclosed and the degree to which multinational corporations (MNCs) disclose it, and second, to empirically test whether there are differences in the reporting policy of this type of company according to the audience (global or local), and to discover the factors that explain these differences. A sample of 26 non-Spanish MNCs operating in Spain was selected from the Spanish Merco reputation index in the period 2004-2007. The results show that there are very signifi cant differences in the degree of disclosure and the type of social information reported by MNCs for each audience, and that a company's visibility and resources, in this order, are relevant factors in explaining these differences. crucial impact on society as well as a potential impact on other fi rms (Kolk et al., 2001), its study would be of great interest to academics.Consequently, the objective of this research is twofold: fi rst, to analyze descriptively the type of social information disclosed and the degree to which MNCs report it, and secondly, to empirically test whether there are differences in the reporting policies of this type of company according to the audience (global or local), and to discover the factors that may explain these differences. The structure of this study is as follows: fi rst of all, there is a theoretical analysis concerning the concept of social information and the factors for its disclosure, in which the research question and hypotheses used to test it are established; the methodology used for the research is then presented; and fi nally, the results are analyzed and the main conclusions of this research are drawn. Corporate Social Reporting: Defi nition and Disclosure FactorsAccording to Gray et al. (1987), social reporting can be defi ned as the process of communicating the social and environmental effects of an organization's economic actions to particular interest groups within society or to society at large. Moreover, corporate social disclosure refers to information provided by companies relating to their activities, aspirations and public image with regard to environmental, community, employee, and consumer issues . Thus, corporate social disclosure or reporting covers a broad and diverse array of matters including product information, environmental impact of corporate operations, employment practices and relations, and supplier and customer interactions.Although a number of governments have directly or indirectly encouraged this type of disclosure, corporate social reporting has mostly been a voluntary activity oriented at being accountable to stakeholders (Kolk, 2008). In search of the reasons behind social or environmental disclosures, the theoretical literature suggests a number of explanations. Gray et al. (1995) classify explanations of social and environmental disclosure into three groups:(1) those focusing on decision-usefulness (corporate disclosures are attempts to remove informational asymmetrie...

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Assessing corporate environmental reporting motivations: differences between ‘close‐to‐market’ and ‘business‐to‐business’ companies

Cited by 110 publications

References 35 publications

Determinants of environmental disclosure in the annual reports of large companies operating in Portugal

Determinants of environmental disclosure in the annual reports of large companies operating in Portugal

Industries Regulation and Firm Environmental Disclosure: A Stakeholders’ Perspective on the Importance of Legitimation and International Activities

Corporate social reporting for different audiences: the case of multinational corporations in Spain

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