Reluctant Disclosure and Transparency: Evidence from Environmental Disclosures

References

• Benson DF, Brau JC, Cicon J, Ferris SP (2015) Strategically camouflaged corporate governance in IPOs: Entrepreneurial masking and impression management. J. Bus. Venturing 30(6):839–864.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Bushee BJ, Gow ID, Taylor DJ (2018) Linguistic complexity in firm disclosures: Obfuscation or information? J. Accounting Res. 56(1):85–121.Google Scholar
• Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) (2015a) CDP global climate change report 2015: At the tipping point? Report, CDP, London.Google Scholar
• Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) (2015b) CDP 2015 climate change scoring methodology. Accessed April 24, 2019, https://www.cdp.net/en.Google Scholar
• Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) (2019) About us. Accessed April 24, 2019, https://www.cdp.net/en/info/about-us.Google Scholar
• Carlos WC, Lewis BW (2017) Strategic silence: Withholding certification status as a hypocrisy avoidance tactic. Admin. Sci. Quart. 63(1):130–169.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Chapman GB, Johnson EJ (2002) Incorporating the irrelevant: Anchors in judgment of belief and value. Gilovich T, Griffin D, Kahneman D, eds. Heuristics and Biases: The Psychology Of Intuitive Judgment (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK), 120–138.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Chatterji AK, Toffel MW (2010) How firms respond to being rated. Strategic Management J. 31(9):917–945.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Chatterji AK, Levine DI, Toffel MW (2009) How well do social ratings actually measure corporate social responsibility? J. Econom. Management Strategy 18(1):125–169.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Chatterji AK, Durand R, Levine DI, Touboul S (2016) Do ratings of firms converge? Strategic Management J. 37(8):1597–1614.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Cheng B, Ioannou I, Serafeim G (2014) Corporate social responsibility and access to finance. Strategic Management J. 35(1):1–23.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Cho CH, Patten DM (2007) The role of environmental disclosures as tools of legitimacy: A research note. Accounting Organ. Soc. 32(7):639–647.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Collins-Thompson K, Callan J (2005) Predicting reading difficulty with statistical language models. J. Assoc. Inform. Sci. Techn. 56(13):1448–1462.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Courtis JK (2004) Corporate report obfuscation: Artefact or phenomenon? British Accounting Rev. 36(3):291–312.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Cox C (2007) Closing remarks to the Second Annual Corporate Governance Summit. Speech, Second Annual Corporate Governance Summit, March 23, USC Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, http://www.sec.gov/news/speech/2007/spch032307cc.htm.Google Scholar
• Decker CS (2003) Corporate environmentalism and environmental statutory permitting. J. Law Econom. 46(1):103–129.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Delmas MA, Burbano VC (2011) The drivers of greenwashing. Calif. Management Rev. 54(1):64–87.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Dempsey SJ, Harrison DM, Luchtenberg KF, Seiler MJ (2012) Financial opacity and firm performance: The readability of REIT annual reports. J. Real Estate Finance Econom. 45(2):450–470.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Desai R, Conant LL, Waldron E, Binder JR (2006) FMRI of past tense processing: The effects of phonological complexity and task difficulty. J. Cognitive Neuroscience 18(2):278–297.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Dhaliwal DS, Li OZ, Tsang A, Yang YG (2011) Voluntary nonfinancial disclosure and the cost of equity capital: The initiation of corporate social responsibility reporting. Accounting Rev. 86(1):59–100.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Dorobantu S, Kaul A, Zelner B (2017) Nonmarket strategy research through the lens of new institutional economics: An integrative review and future directions. Strategic Management J. 38(1):114–140.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Eccles RG, Ioannou I, Serafeim G (2014) The impact of corporate sustainability on organizational processes and performance. Management Sci. 60(11):2835–2857.Link, Google Scholar
• Eccles RG, Serafeim G, Krzus MP (2011) Market interest in nonfinancial information. J. Appl. Corporate Finance 23(4):113–127.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Elsbach KD (1994) Managing organizational legitimacy in the California cattle industry: The construction and effectiveness of verbal accounts. Admin. Sci. Quart. 39(1):57–88.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Elsbach KD, Sutton RI, Principe KE (1998) Averting expected challenges through anticipatory impression management: A study of hospital billing. Organ. Sci. 9(1):68–86.Link, Google Scholar
• Esty DC, Levy M, Srebotnjak T, Sherbinin A (2005) 2005 Environmental Sustainability Index: Benchmarking National Environmental Stewardship (Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy, New Haven, CT), 47–60.Google Scholar
• ExxonMobil (2017) 2016 Corporate Citizenship Report. Report, ExxonMobil, Irving, TX, https://corporate.exxonmobil.com/en/∼/media/Global/Files/sustainability-report/publication/2016-CCR-full-digital.pdf.Google Scholar
• Flammer C (2013) Corporate social responsibility and shareholder reaction: The environmental awareness of investors. Acad. Management J. 56(3):758–781.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Fombrun CJ (1996) Reputation: Realizing Value from the Corporate Image (Harvard Business School Press, Boston).Google Scholar
• Ginsberg JM, Bloom PN (2004) Choosing the right green-marketing strategy. MIT Sloan Management Rev. 46(1):79–84.Google Scholar
• Governance & Accountability Institute (2017) Flash report: 82% of S&P 500 companies published corporate sustainability reports in 2016. Report, Governance & Accountability Institute, New York.Google Scholar
• Graffin SD, Carpenter MA, Boivie S (2011) What’s all that (strategic) noise? Anticipatory impression management in CEO succession. Strategic Management J. 32(7):748–770.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Gunning R (1952) The Technique of Clear Writing (McGraw-Hill, New York).Google Scholar
• Häfner M, Stapel D (2010) Information to go: Fluency enhances the usability of primed information. J. Experiment. Soc. Psych. 46(1):73–84.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Henisz WJ, Dorobantu S, Nartey LJ (2014) Spinning gold: The financial returns to stakeholder engagement. Strategic Management J. 35(12):1727–1748.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Hiatt SR, Park S (2013) Lords of the harvest: Third-party influence and regulatory approval of genetically modified organisms. Acad. Management J. 56(4):923–944.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Hiatt SR, Carlos WC, Sine WD (2018) Manu militari: The institutional contingencies of stakeholder relationships on entrepreneurial performance. Organ. Sci. 29(4):633–652.Link, Google Scholar
• Hiatt SR, Grandy JB, Lee BH (2015) Organizational responses to public and private politics: An analysis of climate change activists and U.S. oil and gas firms. Organ. Sci. 26(6):1769–1786.Link, Google Scholar
• Hoetker G (2007) The use of logit and probit models in strategic management research: Critical issues. Strategic Management J. 28(4):331–343.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Hoffman AJ (2005) Climate change strategy: The business logic behind voluntary greenhouse gas reductions. Calif. Management Rev. 47(3):21–46.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Khawaja MA, Chen F, Marcus N (2010) Using language complexity to measure cognitive load for adaptive interaction design. Proc. 15th Internat. Conf. Intelligent User Interfaces (ACM, New York), 333–336.Google Scholar
• Kim EH, Lyon TP (2011) Strategic environmental disclosure: Evidence from the DOE’s voluntary greenhouse gas registry. J. Environ. Econom. Management 61(3):311–326.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Kim EH, Lyon TP (2015) Greenwash vs. brownwash: Exaggeration and undue modesty in corporate sustainability disclosure. Organ. Sci. 26(3):705–723.Link, Google Scholar
• King BG (2008) A political mediation model of corporate response to social movement activism. Admin. Sci. Quart. 53(3):395–421.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Klassen RD, McLaughlin CP (1996) The impact of environmental management on firm performance. Management Sci. 42(8):1199–1214.Link, Google Scholar
• Konar S, Cohen MA (1997) Information as regulation: The effect of community right to know laws on toxic emissions. J. Environ. Econom. Management 32(1):109–124.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Konar S, Cohen MA (2001) Does the market value environmental performance? Rev. Econom. Statist. 83(2):281–289.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Laksmana I, Tietz W, Yang YW (2012) Compensation discussion and analysis (CD&A): Readability and management obfuscation. J. Accounting Public Policy 31(2):185–203.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Lehavy R, Li F, Merkley K (2011) The effect of annual report readability on analyst following and the properties of their earnings forecasts. Accounting Rev. 86(3):1087–1115.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Lewis BW, Walls J, Dowell GWS (2014) Differences in degrees: CEO characteristics and firm environmental disclosure. Strategic Management J. 35(5):712–722.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Li F (2008) Annual report readability, current earnings, and earnings persistence. J. Accounting Econom. 45(2):221–247.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Luo X, Wang H, Raithel S, Zheng Q (2015) Corporate social performance, analyst stock recommendations, and firm future returns. Strategic Management J. 36(1):123–136.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Lyon TP (2010) Good Cop/Bad Cop Environmental NGOs and Their Strategies Toward Business (Routledge, New York).Google Scholar
• Lyon TP, Maxwell JW (2011) Greenwash: Corporate environmental disclosure under threat of audit. J. Econom. Management Strategy 20(1):3–41.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Margolis JD, Walsh JP (2003) Misery loves companies: Rethinking social initiatives by business. Admin. Sci. Quart. 48(2):268–305.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Marquis C, Glynn MA, Davis GF (2007) Community isomorphism and corporate social action. Acad. Management Rev. 32(3):925–945.Google Scholar
• Marquis C, Toffel MW, Zhou Y (2016) Scrutiny, norms, and selective disclosure: A global study of greenwashing. Organ. Sci. 27(2):483–504.Link, Google Scholar
• Matisoff DC, Noonan DS, O’Brien JJ (2013) Convergence in environmental reporting: Assessing the carbon disclosure project. Bus. Strategy Environ. 22(5):285–305.Crossref, Google Scholar
• McDonnell MH, King B (2013) Keeping up appearances: Reputational threat and impression management after social movement boycotts. Admin. Sci. Quart. 58(3):387–419.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Meyer JW, Rowan B (1977) Institutionalized organizations: Formal structure as myth and ceremony. Amer. J. Sociol. 83(2):340–363.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Muresan G, Cole M, Smith CL, Liu L, Belkin NJ (2006) Does familiarity breed content? Taking account of familiarity with a topic in personalizing information retrieval. Proc. 39th Hawaii Internat. Conf. System Sci. (IEEE, Piscataway, NJ), 53c–53c.Google Scholar
• Oliver C (1991) Strategic responses to institutional processes. Acad. Management Rev. 16(1):145–179.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Pfeffer J (1981) Management as symbolic action: The creation and maintenance of organizational paradigms. Cummings L, Staw B, eds. Research in Organizational Behavior, vol. 3 (JAI Press, Greenwich, CT), 1–52.Google Scholar
• Ramus CA (2001) Organizational support for employees: Encouraging creative ideas for environmental sustainability. Calif. Management Rev. 43(3):85–105.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Reid EM, Toffel MW (2009) Responding to public and private politics: Corporate disclosure of climate change strategies. Strategic Management J. 30(11):1157–1178.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Rennekamp K (2012) Processing fluency and investors’ reactions to disclosure readability. J. Accounting Res. 50(5):1319–1355.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Servaes H, Tamayo A (2013) The impact of corporate social responsibility on firm value: The role of customer awareness. Management Sci. 59(5):1045–1061.Link, Google Scholar
• Shah A, Oppenheimer D (2007) Easy does it: The role of fluency in cue weighting. Judgment Decision Making 2(6):371–379.Google Scholar
• Sharfman M (1996) The construct validity of the Kinder, Lydenberg & Domini social performance ratings data. J. Bus. Ethics 15(3):287–296.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Sharfman MP, Fernando CS (2008) Environmental risk management and the cost of capital. Strategic Management J. 29(6):569–592.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Sharma S, Henriques I (2005) Stakeholder influences on sustainability practices in the Canadian forest products industry. Strategic Management J. 26(2):159–180.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Tietenberg T (1998) Disclosure strategies for pollution control. Environ. Resource Econom. 11(3–4):587–602.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Tversky A, Kahneman D (1974) Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases. Science 185(4157):1124–1131.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Ullmann AA (1985) Data in search of a theory: A critical examination of the relationships among social performance, social disclosure, and economic performance of U.S. firms. Acad. Management Rev. 10(3):540–557.Google Scholar
• Werner T (2015) Gaining access by doing good: The effect of sociopolitical reputation on firm participation in public policy making. Management Sci. 61(8):1989–2011.Link, Google Scholar
• Westphal JD, Zajac EJ (1998) The symbolic management of stockholders: Corporate governance reforms and shareholder reactions. Admin. Sci. Quart. 43(1):127–153.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Zajac EJ, Westphal JD (2004) The social construction of market value: Institutionalization and learning perspectives on stock market reactions. Amer. Sociol. Rev. 69(3):433–457.Crossref, Google Scholar
• Zelner BA (2009) Using simulations to interpret results from logit, probit, and other nonlinear models. Strategic Management J. 30(12):1335–1348.Crossref, Google Scholar