The influence of the Chinese government's political ideology in the field of corporate environmental reporting

Abstract

PurposeIn a state capitalist country such as China, an important influence on company reporting is the government, which can influence company decision-making. The nature and impact of how the Chinese government uses its symbolic power to promote corporate environmental reporting (CER) have been under-studied, and therefore, this paper aims to address this gap in the literature by investigating the various strategies the Chinese government uses to influence CER and how political ideology plays a key role.Design/methodology/approachThis study uses discourse analysis to examine the annual reports and corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports from seven Chinese companies between 2007 and 2011. And the data analysis presented is informed by Bourdieu's conceptualisation of symbolic power.FindingsThe Chinese government, through exercising the symbolic power, manages to build consensus, so that the Chinese government's political ideology becomes the habitus which is deeply embedded in the companies' perception of practices. In China, the government dominates the field and owns the economic capital. In order to accumulate symbolic capital, companies must adhere to political ideology, which helps them maintain and improve their social position and ultimately reward them with more economic capital. The findings show that the CER provided by Chinese companies is a symbolic product of this process.Originality/valueThe paper provides contributions around the themes of symbolic power wielded by the government that influence not only state-owned enterprises (SOEs) but also firms in the private sector. This paper also provides an important contribution to understanding, in the context of a strong ideologically based political system (such as China), how political ideology influences companies' decision-making in the field of CER.

Disparities in ESG reporting by emerging Chinese enterprises: evidence from a global financial center

“…global pressure, political embeddedness and normative social forces) and organizational internal dynamics (e.g. corporate/family culture, corporate governance and senior/family commitment) (Parsa et al , 2021; Situ et al , 2021; Yin, 2017). Thus, we examine three ownership types: state, local and international.…”

“…First, state-owned ECEs or SOEs that operate like MNEs emphasize their home country’s regulations and compliance procedures, as they are induced by a concentrated managerial control mechanism (Comyns, 2018). Importantly, the Chinese Government serves as a symbolic source of power and a strong ideologically based political system that influences SOEs’ decision-making in terms of ESG disclosure (Li and Belal, 2018; Situ et al , 2021). In particular, it plays a mediating rather than a coercive role in offering guidance to SOEs to develop globalized ESG reporting to enter global markets and expand their global dominance (Marquis et al , 2017).…”

“…Moreover, this kind of ECE may adopt substandards related to international ESG reporting practices but focus on their home country’s compliance requirements. In China, ESG can be seen as a legitimacy tool used to focus on one influential stakeholder rather than a tool of accountability or transparency (Situ et al , 2021). Luo et al (2017) show that companies under considerable institutional pressure from the Chinese Government and local governments tend to respond with early ESG adoption but provide low-quality results.…”

A Perspective on the Influence of National Corporate Governance Institutions and Government’s Political Ideology on the Speed to Lockdown as a Means of Protection Against Covid-19

“…For example, in their study of the slavery debate in Antebellum America, Tetlock et al ( 1994 ) found that political ideological leaning affected how the different politicians approached the debate in terms of cognitive style, as well as how this affected their policy preferences. Additionally, other research has shown that U.K. company law was shaped at decisive points in history by the ideological perspectives of the Labour Party (Clift et al, 2000 ; Aguilera & Jackson, 2010 ), and in China, that governmental political orientation influenced the field of corporate environmental reporting (Situ et al, 2021 ). As such, there is significant evidence to show that political ideology does affect the decision-making, and the behaviors, of politicians (Tetlock, 1983 ; Tetlock et al, 1985 , 1994 ), and thus it is likely that they would act on the basis of their filtered impressions woven by their respective political ideological cognitive bases (Jost et al, 2003 ).…”

Charitable organizations and media monitoring in China: A validation analysis using an evolutionary model

“…Later, there has been a need to analyze the impact of media reports on government public expenditure and discuss the impact of media monitoring on o cial promotion and local nance (Qi et al, 2016;Chen, 2017;Hanna, 2018). Also, the analysis of the supervision effect of news media in investigating the government's ecological responsibility from the perspective of functional orientation was followed by focusing on the in uence of media monitoring on government transparency and government audit performance (Zhang et al, 2020;Situ et al, 2020;Keppel, 2022).…”