Monitoring effect of transparency: How does government environmental disclosure facilitate corporate environmentalism?

Environmental information transparency is a key policy instrument in environmental governance, which has been emphasized in most of the literature. Although a large body of research has focused on its role at the national or industrial level in the developed countries, few studies have extended it to emerging economies and tested its role in the subnational context. In this paper, we have empirically examined how government environmental disclosure shapes corporate environmentalism in the context of China. It is argued that the information transparency of government environmental disclosure can promote corporate environmentalism by providing supports for governments' decision‐making of environmental governance, the activeness of environmental nongovernment organizations, and the participation of general public in environmental issues. Especially, we have highlighted two kinds of influences on focal relationship: booster role of bureaucratic capability in the diffusion of environmental institutional pressure and receiver role of organization slack and industrial competition in the perception of environmental institutional pressure. Using a panel dataset of Chinese publicly listed firms from 2008 to 2015, a positive relationship between government's environmental information transparency and corporate environmentalism is found. In addition, our result has shown that this relationship will be stronger for regions where government bureaucracy capabilities are stronger. This study contributes to understanding of the process of firms' strategic choice facing environmental and institutional changes in emerging economies.     

Do Board's Corporate Social Responsibility Strategy and Orientation Influence Environmental Sustainability Disclosure? UK Evidence

The environmental implications of corporate economic activities have led to growing demands for firms and their boards to adopt sustainable strategies and to disseminate more useful information about their activities and impacts on environment. This paper investigates the impact of board's corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategy and orientation on the quantity and quality of environmental sustainability disclosure in UK listed firms. We find that effective board CSR strategy and CSR‐oriented directors have a positive and significant impact on the quality of environmental sustainability disclosure, but not on the quantity. Our findings also suggest that the existence of a CSR committee and issuance of a stand‐alone CSR report are positively and significantly related to environmental sustainability disclosure. When we distinguish between firms with high and low environmental risk, we find that the board CSR/sustainability practices that affect the quantity (quality) of environmental sustainability disclosure appear to be driven more by highly (lowly) environmentally sensitive firms. These results suggest that the board CSR/sustainability practices play an important role in ensuring a firm's legitimacy and accountability towards stakeholders. Our findings shed new light on this under‐researched area and could be of interest to companies, policy‐makers and other stakeholders. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Do chief information officers matter for sustainable development? Impact of their regulatory focus on green information technology strategies and corporate performance

This study proposes and empirically tests a model delineating the relationships among a chief information officer's (CIO's) dominant regulatory focus, the corporate practice of green information technology (IT) strategies and corporate performance. It also examines the moderating role of regulatory stakeholder influence (RSI) in this model. Findings based on sampled firms operating in China have provided support for all the hypotheses. Specifically, they highlight that CIOs with a dominant promotion focus are more prone to practice green IT strategies than those with a dominant prevention focus. Moreover, RSI is found to positively moderate the impact of dominant regulatory focus on the practice of green IT strategies. This strategic practice is also found to enhance corporate performance. Last, the empirical findings reveal that a CIO's dominant promotion focus exerts a direct and positive influence on corporate performance, which suggests that this focus also serves as a direct driver for corporate performance. In sum, these findings not only enrich the extant literature on environmental management and information systems, but also provide useful insights into fine-tuning firms' CIO selection criteria and policy makers' regulatory measures to advance corporate sustainability.     

When Necessity Becomes a Virtue: The Effect of Product Market Competition on Corporate Social Responsibility

We test whether Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is driven by strategic considerations by empirically studying the link between competition and firms' social performance. We find that firms in more competitive industries have better social ratings. In particular, we show that (i) different market concentration proxies are negatively related to widely used CSR measures; (ii) that an increase in competition due to higher import penetration leads to superior CSR performance; (iii) that firms in more competitive environments have a superior environmental performance, measured by firm pollution levels; and (iv) that more product competition is associated to a larger within‐industry CSR variance. We interpret these results as evidence that CSR is strategically chosen.     

Can voluntary environmental regulation promote corporate technological innovation?

The impact of environmental regulation on technological innovation has been widely discussed in the academic circle. Based on the panel data of 403 Chinese manufacturing firms from 2010 to 2015, this paper explored the role of voluntary environmental regulation in technological innovation. The results showed the following: First, both voluntary environmental information disclosure and environmental management system certification had a positive effect on corporate innovation investment. Second, compared with the impact of environmental information disclosure, the impact of environmental management system certification on corporate innovation investment was more significant. Third, there was a significant positive interaction between environmental information disclosure and environmental management system certification. Finally, the effect of voluntary environmental regulation on corporate technological innovation in heavily polluting industries was stronger than that in lightly polluting industries.     

Effect of green innovation strategy on firm‐idiosyncratic risk: A competitive action perspective

Despite increasing concern for corporate environmental responsibility in numerous industries, the relationship between green innovation strategy (GIS) and idiosyncratic risk is a rarely scrutinised topic, particularly in the automotive domain. In this study, we empirically explore the association between GIS and idiosyncratic risk and analyse the moderating role played by the firm's competitive action. We rely on the secondary information sourced for 132 top automotive firms, in the period ranging from 2011 to 2017 by applying the system generalised methods of moments estimator to the dynamic panel data model. Our findings indicate that GIS significantly reduces the idiosyncratic risk of all firms, and this relationship strengthens with the increase in the competitive action of the firms. Our evidence supports “it pays to be green” firm heterogeneity argument. This study highlights the academic and managerial implications and focuses on the environmental issues published in environmental management literature.     

Rivalry information acquisition and disclosure

In the recent past, there have been numerous scandals around poor product qualities in various industries. Although it can be easily rationalized why bad practices have not been reported by the inflictors themselves, it is more difficult to understand why the non‐inflicting competitors did not report their rivals' acts. In this paper, we study these competitors' incentives to acquire and to disclose information on the quality of their rivals' products and question when we can leave the information disclosure process to the competitive pressure of markets and when there is a need for governmental intervention. We find that low quality levels can be disclosed in markets that exhibit negative spill‐over effects, but should not be expected to be disclosed in markets that exhibit a positive spill‐over effect. A regulatory policy on quality testing and disclosure may be more effective in the latter type of market.     

An analysis of non-financial factors associated with financial distress

This article examines factors associated with financial distress among 1006 Spanish manufacturings (SMEs), distinguishing high and low technology industries. Financial distress is analysed using industrial organizational theory through the Porter's five competitive forces model (external factors) and the resource based view through strategic variables (internal factors), such as training, planning, innovation, technology and quality. Two different sources of information were used in the study: Qualitative information related to environmental conditions and strategic variables was gathered through a questionnaire addressed to the firm manager. Quantitative information to identify whether the firm was in financial distress was gathered from the balance sheets and earning statements of the firms. Evidence from this study shows that environmental conditions and some strategic variables are associated with financial distress. The results found that young SMEs with low technology and in a highly competitive environment had a higher probability of financial distress. High bargaining power of buyers and high degree of rivalry among existing competitors were positively associated with financial distress. Financial distress in high-technology industries was not affected by external factors. However, firms with a quality certification have better quality control procedures that ultimately improve financial performance of firms in the technology industries.     

Private Equity Investments and Disclosure Policy

In the current study, we dynamically analyze unlisted firms' voluntary disclosure decisions around private equity (PE) participation. First, we disentangle the role of disclosure in attracting PE investments. In addition, we examine the extent to which a firm's disclosure policy is affected by the changing corporate setting and intensified corporate governance after having received PE. We find no evidence that firms would employ increased disclosure to signal their quality in the years preceding the PE financing. However, we document a significant switch to increased financial disclosure from the PE investment year onwards, consistent with the hypothesis that PE investor presence positively affects portfolio firms' disclosure decisions. Further, we show that the proportional PE ownership stake is positively related to increased disclosure, but only at very high ownership levels. We explain these results in that both internal and external information demands call for higher public disclosure in PE firms. We conclude that the changing information environment resulting from a PE investment stimulates increased public financial disclosure. Our results contribute to illustrate how an indisputable change in governance resulting from a PE investment affects inter-temporal corporate disclosure decisions in unlisted firms.     

Firm strategy and the Canadian Voluntary Climate Challenge and Registry (VCR)

The Canadian VCR is a climate change mitigation program that relies on firms' desire to signal environmental responsibility to external stakeholders through voluntary information disclosure. We analyze indicators of strategic behavior through three measures of engagement with the VCR program (annual participation behavior, quality of action plans and repeat participation), and test for differences in these measures among firms subjected to different regulatory climates that arise over time, across provinces and across economic sectors. Our findings suggest an increased perception of a regulatory threat in later years, as evidenced by an increase in participation rates, higher quality of action plans and higher rates of repeat participation. We also find higher levels of engagement with the VCR program in provinces with large petroleum (Alberta) and manufacturing (Ontario) industries and that have established provincial level greenhouse gas reporting mechanisms, and in certain sectors such as petroleum, electric utilities and to some extent services. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Family ownership and stockholder reactions to environmental performance disclosure: A test of secondary agency relationships

Using the first ever Newsweek “Green Rankings” of the 500 largest U. S. firms in 2009 as a significant historical event, we test for the stockholder reaction to ratings of corporate environmental performance. Both the conventional null hypothesis significance testing and Bayesian approaches show that stockholders react significantly more positively to corporations with higher ratings of corporate environmental performance and that this effect is stronger in family owned firms. Our findings suggest that majority shareholders do not necessarily appropriate minority stockholders' rents when investing in environmental activities, as would be the case in the presence of “Type II” agency conflicts between majority family owners and minority stockholders. The family ownership effect is also found to be stronger in dirty (heavy polluting) industries as well as in more competitive and more opaque industry contexts.     

Carbon disclosure and financial performance: UK environmental policy

The outcome of carbon disclosure, the importance of which has grown remarkably in recent years to become a strategic decision‐making issue for organisations in today's competitive environment, is a subject of lively debate but remains under‐researched in the environmental accounting literature. This study is motivated by this research gap and the growing interest in assessing the financial consequences of corporate involvement in climate change beyond regulatory compliance, as evidenced by firms' voluntary participation in the Carbon Disclosure Project. Using the resource‐based view of the firm as a theoretical framework and linking it to carbon disclosure through Carbon Disclosure Project, we conceptualise and empirically investigate the impact of adopting proactive carbon management policies and communicating them to stakeholders, focusing on the financial performance of the top FTSE350 companies between 2007 and 2015. By developing a comprehensive financial performance index and controlling for several firm characteristics, we find strong evidence that voluntary carbon disclosure is positively associated with firm financial performance. The findings in this paper provide new insights and policy implications for managers, financial stakeholders, and regulators.     

Does corporate environmental responsibility engagement affect firm value? The mediating role of corporate innovation

This paper aims to construct a comprehensive corporate environmental responsibility (CER) engagement measurement to examine the relationship between CER engagement and firm value as well as explore the mediating effect of corporate innovation on this relationship based on a sample of 496 China's A‐share listed companies from 2008 to 2016. The results show that when firms start to adopt environmental regulations, CER would have a negative effect on firm value; however, at a specific level, CER would start to enhance firm value positively. In addition to this, corporate innovation plays a mediating role in the relationship between CER and firm value. Corporate innovation promotes firm value of firms with CER more than firms without CER. Overall, the findings of this paper are extremely relevant for the government, investors, and firm's managers and can be utilized for policy and investment decision making. Also, the findings encourage firms to enhance their sense of environmental responsibility in order to enhance their competitive advantages, enhance corporate innovation capabilities, and thus enhance firm value.     

The relationship between environmental information disclosure and firm valuation: the role of corporate governance

Hopwood argued that accounting has become associated with environmental concerns, and that environmental concerns will be further integrated into accounting practices in the near future. The McKinsey Company discovered that environmental information affects a firm’s value, and that investors in firms with good corporate governance in Asian countries are willing to pay a price premium of 20 % or greater. The increasing need for environmental protection and responsibility to the community on the part of firms have led to environmental protection becoming a critical focal concern of governments, public welfare associations, and the public. Effective implementation of corporate governance has been reported to enhance operating performance and increase firm value. This study applies the Ohlson valuation model to examine the value relevance of environmental information disclosure and corporate governance, and investigate their on firms in Taiwan. The results indicate relationships between total disclosure of environmental information, mandatory disclosure of environmental information, and voluntary disclosure of environmental information and firm value. Corporate governance is positively correlated with the valuation of total disclosure of environmental information and mandatory disclosure of environmental information.     

Adherence to environmental law: the strategic complementarities of compliance decisions

In this paper we address why firms comply with environmental regulations when enforcement is weak by suggesting that firms choose their level of environmental compliance strategically. Our theoretical model shows that compliance decisions among firms are strategic complements—increased compliance by one firm will positively influence the compliance rate of its rival. In our empirical analysis we find that the compliance rates of other regulated entities have a positive and significant effect on a regulated source's compliance behavior in three of our four heavily regulated industries. If compliance decisions are strategic complements, this may partially explain high compliance rates in the presence of limited regulatory pressure.     

Exploring the linkages of green transformational leadership,organizational green learning,and radical green innovation

Radical green innovation is the necessary way for countries and firms to achieve sustainable development. Although the influencing factors of green innovation have attracted extensive attention, there is little research on the antecedents of radical green innovation. Drawing on organizational learning theory and attention-based view, this study proposes R-I ratio to measure the configuration of exploratory green learning and exploitative green learning, then analyzes the relationships among green transformational leadership, R-I ratio and radical green innovation, and examines the moderating effects of green R&D investment and environmental regulatory pressure. Based on a sample of 243 manufacturing firms in China's strategic emerging industries, the empirical results reveal that green transformational leadership promotes R-I ratio, and R-I ratio has inverted U-shaped relationship with radical green innovation. The results also find that green R&D investment plays U-shaped moderating role in the relationship between green transformational leadership and R-I ratio, and environmental regulatory pressure positively moderates the relationship between green transformational leadership and R-I ratio. The study not only reveals the relationships of green transformational leadership, organizational green learning and radical green innovation, but also provides theoretical guidance and management practice for manufacturing firms and government to promote radical green innovation.     

Does Innovation Drive Environmental Disclosure? A New Insight into Sustainable Development

Sustainable development is a hot topic in business and the media, and there is a growing demand for reliable environmental disclosure from a wide range of stakeholders. Ethical performance, including social and environmental performance, is actively scrutinized. A firm's stakeholders expect reliable disclosure to correctly assess its performance. Research on the link between environmental disclosure and environmental performance shows mixed results. Both a positive and a negative association have been found. This study reexamines this association by considering environmental innovation as a key determinant of environmental disclosure. We find that environmental performance and environmental innovation jointly determine environmental disclosure. At low levels of environmental performance, innovative firms tend to disclose more than their non‐innovative counterparts to inform stakeholders about their innovation and strategy to obtain an improved environmental performance. This disclosure gap tends to diminish as innovative firms become better environmental performers. The higher levels of environmental disclosure are closely associated with firms' environmental performance for both groups. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Mitigating climate change: A role for regulations and risk‐taking

Why do some firms engage in actions to reduce climate change? We propose two counterintuitive mechanisms: high levels of regulation and a firm's increased tolerance for risk. Drawing from insights on how institutional contexts constrain, and enable, prosocial firm behavior, we argue that external pressures, amplified internally by a firm's higher tolerance for risk, increase the likelihood that a greenhouse gas (GHG)‐intensive firm will engage in climate change actions that exceed regulatory requirements. An analysis based on 7,101 observations of U.S. publicly traded firms during the 2013 to 2015 period supports our hypotheses. Our models show high overall prediction accuracy (88.6%) using an out‐of‐time holdout sample from 2016. Moreover, we find that firms that have exhibited environmental wrongdoing are also more likely to engage in beyond‐compliance activities, which may be a form of greenwashing. Thus, more formal and informal regulatory oversight has the potential to spur positive environmental actions. This has implications for a firm's corporate social responsibility actions as well as for climate change regulatory policy.     

Motivations and Barriers to Corporate Environmental Management

This paper integrates two conceptual frameworks, utility maximization and institutional theory, to analyze voluntary corporate environmental management. The utility maximization or economic approach centers on motivations to decrease cost, increase revenue and improve manager utility. Institutional theory emphasizes how external pressures from market and non‐market constituents shape the firm's environmental efforts. We view the two frameworks as complementary and postulate a model that includes both types of influences. Survey data from six major industries consisting of a diverse set of facilities are used to estimate the effects of economic and institutional factors on a facility's use of environmental practices and pollution‐prevention activities. Our results support the hypothesized model, and show that cost barriers, management attitudes toward environmental stewardship, company ownership and external institutional forces, including competitiveness, investor and regulatory pressures, all affect a facility's environmental practices and pollution prevention activities. Findings suggest that a multifaceted policy strategy is needed to advance corporate environmental management across diverse firms. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Carbon risk management and corporate competitive advantages: “Differential promotion” or “cost hindrance”?

Given the strengthening of carbon regulations and the launch of emission trading scheme in China, companies are facing tremendous pressure to reduce carbon emissions, suggesting the necessity of understanding whether carbon risk management may affect corporate financial benefits. Therefore, this paper empirically demonstrates the influence of carbon risk management on corporate competitive advantages. We find that the relationship between carbon risk management and corporate competitive advantages is a “kuznets curve” that exists only among firms with weak product competition. And this relationship tends to be weakened in firms with a distant administrative hierarchy. We conclude that the influence of low carbon management on corporate competitive advantages is complicated and subject to the firm's political relevance.