Green dies in darkness? environmental externalities of newspaper closures

Jiang, John; Kong, Jing

doi:10.1007/s11142-023-09786-5

Cited by 7 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 54 publications

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“…On the one hand, based on the proposed window-dressing strategy, we assumed that corporates increase green investment and pollutant emissions simultaneously after negative media coverage. The difference between this hypothesis and the previous research is that the latter often discusses the connection between the media and green investment [1,73,74] or the media and pollutant emissions [75,76], which ignores the comprehensiveness when firms formulate their strategies. Specifically, we found that negative media coverage significantly and simultaneously increases firms' green investment (Table 3, Model 2) and pollutant emissions (Table 4, Model 2), indicating that firms attempt to enrich green investment to maintain their reputation and divert external attention, and sustain their pollutant emissions to share investment costs and pursue production performance (H1).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 91%

Window Dressing in Impression Management: Does Negative Media Coverage Drive Corporate Green Production?

Gan,

2024

Sustainability

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This study addresses the calls for research attention on corporate greenwashing and analyzes an environmental strategy in corporate impression management. We assume that negative media coverage triggers impression motivation and causes firms to adopt environmental strategies for impression construction based on the two-component model in impression management. Specifically, firms release credible signals, such as green investment, to cover concealed pollution emissions under the framework of a game with incomplete information. We posit that firms can select a window-dressing strategy under the pressures of negative media coverage by constructing two regression models, respectively. We also assess our underlying assumption of constraints from state ownership and institutional shareholdings by testing additional moderating relationships. Utilizing a sample of Chinese publicly listed firms from 2000 to 2010, our empirical results suggest that negative media coverage increases corporate green investment, but pollutant emissions are reduced correspondingly, and state ownership aggravates corporate window dressing while institutional shareholdings curb it. Our findings reveal the corporate social irresponsibility in environmental protection and sustainable development, and they offer important implications for firm stakeholders.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 91%

Window Dressing in Impression Management: Does Negative Media Coverage Drive Corporate Green Production?

Gan,

2024

Sustainability

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“…Previous studies underscore the crucial role of media in disseminating corporate news and influencing firm behavior and stock returns (Jiang and Kong 2023). Given the constraints on investor attention and processing capacity, the widespread distribution of corporate news across diverse media platforms aids investors in promptly integrating firm news into stock prices (Bushee et al, 2010;Hirshleifer and Teoh, 2003).…”

Section: Related Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Traditional Media, Twitter, and Four Business Scandals

Jiang,

Shen

2023

JQD

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We examine how traditional media and Twitter cover four business scandals: Wells Fargo fake accounts, EpiPen pricing hikes, Samsung Note 7 faulty battery, and Volkswagen’s cheating in emission tests. There are over 500 articles from The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and USA Today, and over 400,000 tweets related to these events. We find that traditional media are highly influential. Media organizations, including newspapers, TV networks, and other media outlets, only sent 1% of the scandal-related tweets, but they account for 39% of Twitter users who follow all scandal-related tweets. Newspaper articles rather than individual tweets drew politicians’ attention and preceded additional responses from the troubled firms. The troubled firms also choose TV instead of social media to speak to the public. In contrast, social media appear to play a discovery role. Individual tweets precede newspaper articles but not vice versa. Overall, we conclude that the rise of social media such as Twitter does not diminish the role of traditional media in covering business scandals.

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