Corporate Environmental Disclosure: Contrasting Management's Perceptions with Reality

This paper's purpose is to assess how management's perceptions regarding certain aspects of environmental reporting relate to the firm's actual reporting strategy. Toward that end, we propose a model where a firm's environmental disclosure is conditional upon executive assessment...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of business ethics 2004-01, Vol.49 (2), p.143-165
Main Authors: Cormier, Denis, Gordon, Irene M., Magnan, Michel
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Annual reports
Attitudes
Business ethics
Business structures
Business studies
Communication
Corporate governance
Corporate management
Disclosure
Ecological sustainability
Environment
Environmental auditing
Environmental legislation
Environmental management
Environmental regulation
Environmental remediation
Ethics
Europe
Executives
Financial management
Fixed assets
Green businesses
Investigations
Legitimacy
Management
Multinational corporations
Multinational enterprises
North America
Perception
Perceptions
Social responsibility
Society
Stakeholders
Studies
Surveys
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Summary:This paper's purpose is to assess how management's perceptions regarding certain aspects of environmental reporting relate to the firm's actual reporting strategy. Toward that end, we propose a model where a firm's environmental disclosure is conditional upon executive assessments of corporate concerns. The study relies on a survey that was sent to environmental management executives from European and North American multinational firms enquiring about the determinants of corporate environmental disclosure. Responses from these executives were then contrasted with their firms' actual environmental reporting practices, which was measured using a comprehensive multi-criteria grid. Results show that there is a relationship between environmental managers' attitudes toward various stakeholder groups and how those managers respond to the stakeholders via the decision to disclose and the actual disclosures made. Our model provides a perspective as to how a firm responds to the numerous stakeholders to whom it must be accountable. This accountability in turn relates to how the company communicates its actions to society in order to achieve or maintain its social legitimacy.
ISSN:0167-4544
1573-0697
DOI:10.1023/B:BUSI.0000015844.86206.b9