Corporate Environmental Disclosure: Contrasting Management's Perceptions with Reality

Cormier, Denis; Gordon, Irene M.; Magnan, Michel

doi:10.1023/b:busi.0000015844.86206.b9

Cited by 284 publications

(252 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…As a result, changes in pressures lead to changes in the extent of environmental disclosure (cf. Cormier et al, 2004;Milne and Patten, 2002 for detailed reviews of legitimacy theory). Several empirical studies have provided evidence of increased environmental disclosure in response to amplified public policy pressures, with some studies using a longitudinal approach of one company or industry (see Alciatore et al, 2006 for recent reviews; Deegan et al, 2002;Lee and Hutchison, 2005).…”

Section: The Role Of Institutional Factorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Determinants of the adoption of sustainability assurance statements: an international investigation

2008

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This paper explores the factors associated with the voluntary decisions to assure social, environmental and sustainability reports. Since the market for assurance services in this area is in its formative stages, there is a limited understanding of the demand for this emergent non-financial auditing practice, which is evolving rapidly across different countries. Drawing from extant literature in international auditing and environmental accounting, we focus on a set of country-level institutional factors to explain the adoption of sustainability assurances statements among an international panel of 212 Fortune Global 250 companies for the years 1999, 2002 and 2005. Consistently with our expectations, our results provide evidence that companies operating in countries that are more stakeholder-oriented and have a weaker governance enforcement regime are more likely to adopt a sustainability assurance statement. Further, the demand for assurance is higher in countries where sustainable corporate practices are better enabled by market and institutional mechanisms. Our exploratory findings also indicate that the likelihood to choose a large accounting firm as assurance provider increases for companies domiciled in countries that are shareholder-oriented and have a lower level of litigation. We conclude the paper suggesting three directions of research in the area of sustainability assurance that have relevant academic and practical implications.

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Section: The Role Of Institutional Factorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Determinants of the adoption of sustainability assurance statements: an international investigation

2008

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“…Other disclosure studies that have found empirical evidence for stakeholder theory also refer to 'stakeholder power' or related constructs (Deegan and Blomquist 2006;Elijido-Ten et al 2010;Neu et al 1998). In addition to power, alternative stakeholder traits have been found to be relevant, such as a pragmatic and collaborative stand (Deegan and Blomquist 2006) and the level of interest in a company (Cormier et al 2004). Finally, Darnall et al (2009) find that differences across companies in the use of (largely voluntary) environmental audits can be attributed to variations in stakeholder influences.…”

Section: Prior Literature and Hypotheses Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Empirical CSR disclosure studies, investigating how stakeholders affect managerial decision-making are scarce (e.g., Boesso and Kumar 2009;Cormier et al 2004;Deegan and Blomquist 2006;Neu et al 1998) and so far have not provided insight into the extent to which stakeholders' characteristics are relevant in CSR disclosure. This study will research the degree to which the extensiveness of a company's environmental disclosure can be explained by specific attributes of the environmental NGOs with which it is confronted; more specifically, the attributes included are those which determine the salience of the environmental NGO.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Secondary Stakeholder Influence on CSR Disclosure: An Application of Stakeholder Salience Theory

2015

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The aim of this study is to analyse how secondary stakeholders influence managerial decision-making on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) disclosure. Based on stakeholder salience theory, we empirically investigate whether differences in environmental disclosure among companies are systematically related to differences in the level of power, urgency and legitimacy of the environmental non-governmental organisations (NGOs) with which these companies are confronted. Using proprietary archival data for an international sample of 199 large companies, our results suggest that differences in environmental disclosures between companies are mainly associated with differences between their environmental stakeholders' legitimacy. The effects of power and urgency are of an indirect nature, as they are mediated by legitimacy. This study improves our understanding of CSR disclosure by demonstrating that, next to the welldocumented effect of company characteristics, stakeholder characteristics are also important. Besides, it provides scarce empirical evidence that not only primary stakeholders, but also secondary stakeholders are influential with regards to management decision-making. And more specifically, it offers insight into why some stakeholder groups are better able to influence disclosure decisions than other. The results also have important practical implications for managers of both environmental NGOs and large companies. For managers of environmental NGOs the results provide evidence of the most successful tactics for having their environmental information demands satisfied by companies. For company management the results provide insights into the most important stakeholder characteristics, on the basis of which they may develop strategies for proactively disclosing environmental information.

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“…The type of sustainability reporting information disclosed by firms is found to be associated with their perceptions of stakeholder concerns (Cormier et al, 2004;Henriques & Sadorsky, 1996;Roberts, 1992). Yet, no prior research has examined what types of online corporate sustainability information stakeholders are motivated to use.…”

Section: Online Corporate Sustainability Reportingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring the use of online corporate sustainability information

Rowbottom¹,

Lymer²

2009

Accounting Forum

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Whilst the supply, exclusivity and prominence of online corporate sustainability information has increased in recent years, comparatively little is known about what information is used by whom. This paper explores which user groups access online corporate sustainability information, and assesses the relative use of sustainability reports and other forms of social and environmental information disseminated on corporate Websites.To collect the necessary empirical data, the paper analyses 4,652,471 successful requests for information made by the users of 10 UK FTSE 350 corporate Websites.The paper finds that the majority of requests for online sustainability information originate from the reporting company indicative of an inward focus to sustainability reporting. In examining access to different online information sets, distinct profiles of corporate Website users begin to emerge. Requests from employees, private individuals, ISPs and consultants represent the vast majority of the online sustainability reporting audience and the corporate Website in general. Contrastingly, a professional financially-orientated profile of users characterised by professional investors, creditors, accounting firms and lawyers make significantly more use of the Annual Report but significantly less use of sustainability reporting information and other online disclosures.Although prior literature notes how companies have yet to utilise the potential of the online medium in disseminating corporate sustainability information, disclosures are found to attract approximately a tenth of all corporate Website requests. Environmental and ethical disclosures outside the Annual Report are the most popular sources of online corporate sustainability information whilst 'standalone' Sustainability and/or Ethics Reports attract very few requests.

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Corporate Environmental Disclosure: Contrasting Management's Perceptions with Reality

Cited by 284 publications

References 33 publications

Determinants of the adoption of sustainability assurance statements: an international investigation

Determinants of the adoption of sustainability assurance statements: an international investigation

Secondary Stakeholder Influence on CSR Disclosure: An Application of Stakeholder Salience Theory

Exploring the use of online corporate sustainability information

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