Corporate environmental non‐reporting – a UK FTSE 350 perspective

Until relatively recently the majority of large publicly listed UK companies have not produced annual environmental reports. Of particular note is the slow take‐up of environmental reporting amongst the UK's top 350 companies, the FTSE 350. Using the results of a postal questionnaire, the reluctance of a majority of the FTSE 350 to voluntarily report is linked to 13 drawbacks. Results from non‐reporting respondents to the questionnaire allowed the relative importance of these drawbacks to be placed in a ranked order. Senior management doubt over the advantages of reporting was shown to be the most important drawback, closely followed by the effort required for data collection. A comparison in the uptake of corporate environmental management practices (other than reporting) was also made amongst reporters and non‐reporters. Reporters were shown to have a generally higher level of uptake, although company sector type and size was influential on environmental engagement overall. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

An environmental marketing system – a proposed model based on Indian experience

This paper is based on a study conducted in India on venvironmental marketing practices of Indian companies. The study was set in the backdrop of a new environmental‐friendly culture in India in the early 1990s, primarily due to the complex environmental problems encountered in different parts of the country. The increased awareness and interest shown by Indian companies in respect of environmental management and marketing was evident in the sharp increase of ISO14001 certified companies in the country. However, an important question at this context was how effectively Indian companies were practicing environmental marketing for the benefit of their customers and other stakeholders. The present paper is an attempt to trace the extent and nature of environmental marketing practice in india and to propose a model for guiding the practice. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

How to draft ‘good’ minutes of monetary policy decisions

The minutes of monetary policy decisions at central banks vary substantially. A common norm does not exist. To ensure accountability and guide policy expectations, the minutes should satisfy some basic requirements. In search of criteria for ‘good’ minutes, it is relevant to look at how supreme courts write their decisions. Four criteria for ‘good’ minutes are proposed. The minutes of six central banks are assessed against the proposed criteria. In spite of the substantial variation in format, their minutes largely satisfy the criteria. The central banks' minutes seem to reflect their individual communication histories. The central banks could learn from each other, but also from the supreme courts, especially in terms of how they organise the writing of the minority view.     

Stakeholder engagement and environmental strategy – the case of climate change

Many management studies analyze stakeholder pressures and corresponding corporate strategies in the context of the natural environment. This study investigates the role of the sources of stakeholder pressures and additional contextual factors for choosing an environmental strategy. By focusing on climate change as an important ecological challenge, four general response strategies to greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction pressures are empirically derived and discussed. The analysis is based on a global survey that includes 141 companies across eight different GHG emission‐intensive industries. It is found that organizations' response strategies do not relate to individual stakeholder groups, but rather the organization's level of pollution measured as its GHG intensity is identified to have an influence on the environmental strategy. We discuss important implications for stakeholder theory as well as policy makers and suggest areas for future research. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

乡镇企业环境信息披露探讨

乡镇企业是我国环境污染的重要影响方面,环境信息披露是减少其环境影响、履行其环境责任的重要措施,还能为企业本身带来收益。文章对环境信息披露在我国乡镇企业实施的必要性及问题进行了研究,并对此提出了发展建议,以促进企业管理当局将掌握的更多有关经济决策可能带来的环境问题及财务影响的信息公布,充分履行企业对利益关系者的诚实报告责任。     

The ‘win–win’ paradigm and stakeholder integration

Firms are under pressure to invest in environmental management systems (EMSs) to reduce the environmental impacts of their activities. Many advocates of EMS adoption promote the idea of ‘win–win’ gains, where improvements in environmental performance are accompanied by financial rewards. The empirical evidence on this is mixed and suggests that the' right' conditions must exist within the firm for genuine environmental performance gains to materialize. The paper uses a survey of 129 Spanish manufacturing firms to investigate managerial perceptions about what these right conditions might be. Results indicate that enhanced environmental performance following EMS adoption is linked to managers' belief in the win–win paradigm, and that managers who adhere to the win–win story also tend to integrate other stakeholder demands into their business strategies. Policy implications conclude the paper. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Caveat emptor – let the buyer beware! environmental labelling and the limitations of ‘green’ consumerism

In recent years, the idea of ‘green’ or ‘political’ consumers expressing their political beliefs in everyday life has been widely embraced. Eager to satisfy the needs of this new market segment, firms have allocated substantial resources to environmental management, social accountability, corporate citizenship, occupational health and safety etc. During the 1990s, the industrialized world also witnessed a growing number of environmental labels, expected to guide the political consumers in their shopping decisions. Evaluations of these environmental labelling (eco‐labelling) programmes indicate that some labels and product groups receive a great deal of attention while others remain in obscurity. To understand these differences, the paper will discuss some of the factors that determine the market impact of environmental labelling. It is concluded that the concept of the ‘green’ consumer is over‐simplified and fails to capture the actual complexity of consumer values, attitudes and behaviour. The results are based on existing literature and our own empirical findings. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

The effects of information about health hazards in food on consumers’ choice process

This study examines the effects of context (health hazard), direction (positive versus negative) and intensity of information about health hazards on consumers’ choice processes. We propose that choice of frequently purchased food commodities, ceteris paribus, is based on a single dimension—taste. We develop a set of hypotheses regarding the type of choice process to be employed in various information types and empirically test them in a field experiment design. Our results indicate that a single-dimension choice process is employed under a nonsevere message and a multidimensional process under high-intensity negative information.     

The effects of environmental risk information on auditors' decisions about prospective financial statements

This study tests a model of how auditors make decisions when presented with environmental risk information in the context of a task that requires their professional opinion on a company's forecasted information. Auditing provided a small-world context where declarative and procedural knowledge have been well documented in terms of the rules for analysing financial information. This research uses a conceptual modelling approach to determine auditors' perceptions of environmental risk information and the effects on their judgement and decision choices when issuing an examination report supporting forecasted financial statements. Auditors were provided with environmental risk information that they had to process and integrate in their decision-making. The results demonstrated that auditors act on unfamiliar declarative knowledge using their standard procedural knowledge. The results from eighty-four senior auditors displayed evidence that auditors' perception of environmental risk information is downplayed compare to the traditional accounting information during their judgement and decision choice phases. When confronted with conflicting information, auditors tend to place more reliance on financial rather than environmental risk information. One of the implications of this study is that auditors should be trained to handle non-traditional information, such as environmental risk.     

The impact of environmental information on professional purchasers' choice of products

Professional food purchasers are an important group of people since they influence what alternatives of a food product consumers will have the possibility to choose between. The aim of the present study was to investigate the inclination among professional purchasers to choose food products associated with more benign environmental consequences. Information about product price, total use of energy, emission of greenhouse gases and use of pesticides associated with production and consumption of one kilogram of minced beef and fresh apples was varied systematically in order to study the relative influence on product preference. Product price was found to influence product preference more than any of the three environmentally related factors. Introduction of a labeling system that indicated whether the environmental impacts associated with a food product during its life cycle were ‘better’ or ‘worse’ than an average product partly increased the effect of environmental information. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

外国直接投资的环保技术溢出途径研究--基于2004年中国工业企业普查数据的实证研究

减排技术的国际传播可以通过外国直接投资水平溢出和垂直溢出来实现。本文通过tobit模型实证研究,发现外国直接投资对减少污染排放的水平溢出比较有效,而垂直溢出方面总体较差,企业规模和所有制形式都是影响环保技术垂直溢出的主要因素。扩大外资的环保技术扩散效应,需要在全国执行更加严格的环保标准。     

基于PPP项目的风险分担机制研究综述

公私合作模式(PPP)是应用于公共基础设施建设的一种融资模式,由于参与者多,风险分担是PPP项目取得成功的关键.目前对PPP项目风险分担机制的研究主要有两种:一是政府与私人投资者双方之间的风险分担机制.二是项目各参与方之间的风险分担机制.重点论述和评价了国内外关于PPP项目风险分担的涵义、风险分担的原则、风险分担条件、风险分担谈判过程、风险分担矩阵和风险分担的相关模型,并对风险分担的研究作了进一步展望.     

The effect of communication in incentive systems—an experimental study

In organizational theory, it is a widely accepted postulate that cooperation among subjects is enforceable. This assumption is essential for the evaluation of two frequently discussed incentive systems: team and tournament compensation. Whereas in team‐based pay systems cooperation is highly desired, cooperation in rank‐order tournaments—labeled as ‘collusion’—is regarded as one of the main drawbacks of relative performance evaluation. In this experimental study, two different communication technologies are introduced into both incentive environments. The results indicate that when only limited communication is permitted subjects tend to cheat on each other in the tournament rather than in the team setting. Interestingly, allowing subjects to exchange emails leads to a similarly stable cooperation in both incentive systems. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

基于XBRL财报的会计信息质量及含量研究

本文在分析XBRL财报优势的基础上,采用IASB/FASB联合概念框架中对会计信息质量的规定,从理论层面分析了XBRL财报对会计信息质量的改善。同时,从实证层面采用事件研究法以兖州煤业为例,对XBRL财报的会计信息含量进行了研究,结果表明XBRL年报披露前后CAR的变化并不显著,XBRL标准对会计信息含量贡献不大。最后,本文给出了导致这种结果的可能原因。     

Corporate Environmental Reporting and News Coverage of Environmental Issues: an Agenda‐Setting Perspective

Departing from agenda‐setting theory, this paper explores whether environmental content in newspapers is related to corporate environmental agendas presented in corporate environmental reports and annual reports. Based on a sample of 1668 corporate reports published between 1997 and 2008, this paper compares corporate reporting against environmental news content over the same period with time lags of one and two years as well as without time lags. The results suggest that the media agenda and the corporate environmental agenda mirror each other. The results further suggest that, for some issues, there may be an impact of the news media agenda on corporate environmental agendas, but not vice versa. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Corporate Responsibility Reporting and its Determinants in Comparative Perspective – a Review of the Empirical Literature and a Meta‐analysis

For four decades, reporting on corporate responsibility by businesses has been the subject of empirical research. In the 1970s and 1980s, studies mostly originated from Anglo‐Saxon and Western European countries. During the last two decades research on responsibility reporting was increasingly undertaken in emerging and developing countries as well – always following the reporting practices of the respective businesses. Consequentially, a very large number of studies exist today. Many of these have empirically investigated the determinants of responsibility reporting and examined whether internal factors like size and industry or external factors like stakeholder pressures have an impact on disclosure. Thus, the purpose of the following paper is twofold. First, it seeks to provide an overview of the existing literature in order to facilitate further research. Overall, 186 studies have been examined for the determinants which they considered and have been grouped according to their geographical origin. This provides for an analysis of whether academics from different regions have taken different approaches to the empirical examination of responsibility reporting and if their results differed. The findings show that scholars across regions have taken different paths in empirical research, but indications for a variation in the impact of specific determinants on reporting are weak. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Voluntary Adopters of Integrated Reporting – Evidence on Forecast Accuracy and Firm Value

This study investigates how integrated reporting (IR) creates value for investors. It examines how providers of financial capital benefit from an improved firm information environment provided by IR. Specifically, this study investigates the effect of voluntary IR disclosure on analyst earnings forecast accuracy as well as on firm value. To do so, we use an international sample of 167 listed companies that voluntarily publish an integrated report. Our analysis shows no significant effect of a voluntary IR publication on analyst earnings forecast accuracy and no significant effect on firm value. We thus do not find evidence for the fulfillment of IR's promises regarding improved information environment and value creation of voluntary adopters. We conclude that such companies might already have a relatively high level of transparency leading to an absent additional effect of IR disclosure. Positive effects of IR appear to be more relevant in environments where IR is mandatory.     

Focus and Standardization of Sustainability Reporting – A Comparative Study of the United Kingdom and Finland

Sustainability reporting has attracted significant attention from the business as well as the academic community in recent years. Not only has the latter frequently made recommendations on reporting, it has also extensively examined factors that have an influence on reporting. Several studies have noted differences in the extent and style of reporting across countries, but the influence of specific cultural and socio‐economic environments on reporting has only been given limited consideration so far. It is the goal of this paper to help fill this gap. For this purpose, we examine the sustainability reporting of the 100 largest companies in the United Kingdom and Finland, as both are highly developed countries in North‐Western Europe, but with significantly different cultural and socio‐economic systems. Aside from the extent of reporting and media used, we examine the reporting standards and guidelines applied. Moreover, the focus of disclosure (economic, social or environmental) was investigated, which also brings a new perspective to the academic literature. Our results suggest that the cultural and socio‐economic environment has an impact on the extent of reporting, but with regard to the focus of reporting and the application of standards the results are mixed. A stronger shareholder oriented culture does not lead to a more extensive inclusion of economic issues in sustainability reporting, while the extent of environmental reporting depends on the strength of environmentalism. The impact of cultural and socio‐economic factors on the application of standards, such as the Global Reporting Initiative, appears to be limited. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Sustainability reporting in Norway – an assessment of performance in the context of legal demands and socio‐political drivers

This article explores the influence of societal, political and regulatory characteristics and developments on the quality of corporate sustainability disclosures in Norway. The paper presents an assessment both of mandatory reporting under the Norwegian Accounting Act, and of voluntary reporting in annual and separate non‐financial reports, by the 100 largest firms in Norway. Our results reveal that only 10% of the companies comply with the legal requirements on environmental reporting, while only half of the firms comply with the legal reporting provisions on working environment and gender equality. The vast majority of firms also report unsatisfactorily on non‐financial issues in the voluntary disclosures assessed. Analysing the causes of these results, we contend that the situation is characterized by (1) an apparent lack of political and social drivers for sustainability reporting in Norway and (2) an absence of sufficient monitoring and enforcement of the environmental reporting legislation on the part of Norwegian authorities. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.