IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/aosoci/v34y2009i1p1-27.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Media legitimacy and corporate environmental communication

Author

Listed:
  • Aerts, Walter
  • Cormier, Denis

Abstract

Using a direct measure of environmental legitimacy, we explore the impact of annual report environmental disclosures and environmental press releases as legitimation tools. The sample comprises North American firms (Canada and the United States). The results obtained show that environmental legitimacy is significantly and positively affected by the quality of the economic-based segments of annual report environmental disclosures and by reactive environmental press releases, but not by proactive press releases. Moreover, our results suggest that negative media legitimacy is a driver of environmental press releases but not of annual report environmental disclosures.

Suggested Citation

  • Aerts, Walter & Cormier, Denis, 2009. "Media legitimacy and corporate environmental communication," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 1-27, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:aosoci:v:34:y:2009:i:1:p:1-27
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0361-3682(08)00013-5
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Blake E. Ashforth & Barrie W. Gibbs, 1990. "The Double-Edge of Organizational Legitimation," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 1(2), pages 177-194, May.
    2. Hughes, Susan B. & Anderson, Allison & Golden, Sarah, 2001. "Corporate environmental disclosures: are they useful in determining environmental performance?," Journal of Accounting and Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 20(3), pages 217-240.
    3. Hayagreeva Rao, 1994. "The Social Construction of Reputation: Certification Contests, Legitimation, and the Survival of Organizations in the American Automobile Industry: 1895–1912," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 15(S1), pages 29-44, December.
    4. Barton, Jan & Mercer, Molly, 2005. "To blame or not to blame: Analysts' reactions to external explanations for poor financial performance," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 509-533, September.
    5. Patten, Dennis M., 2002. "The relation between environmental performance and environmental disclosure: a research note," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 27(8), pages 763-773, November.
    6. Cowen, Scott S. & Ferreri, Linda B. & Parker, Lee D., 1987. "The impact of corporate characteristics on social responsibility disclosure: A typology and frequency-based analysis," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 12(2), pages 111-122, March.
    7. Craig Deegan & Michaela Rankin & Peter Voght, 2000. "Firms' Disclosure Reactions to Major Social Incidents: Australian Evidence," Accounting Forum, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(1), pages 101-130, March.
    8. Ali Fekrat, M. & Inclan, Carla & Petroni, David, 1996. "Corporate environmental disclosures: Competitive disclosure hypothesis using 1991 annual report data," The International Journal of Accounting, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 175-195.
    9. Neu, D. & Warsame, H. & Pedwell, K., 1998. "Managing public impressions: environmental disclosures in annual reports," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 265-282, April.
    10. Ingram, Rw & Frazier, Kb, 1980. "Environmental Performance And Corporate Disclosure," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(2), pages 614-622.
    11. Darrell, W. & Schwartz, Bill N., 1997. "Environmental disclosures and public policy pressure," Journal of Accounting and Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 16(2), pages 125-154.
    12. Patten, Dennis M., 1992. "Intra-industry environmental disclosures in response to the Alaskan oil spill: A note on legitimacy theory," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 17(5), pages 471-475, July.
    13. Richard L. Daft & Robert H. Lengel, 1986. "Organizational Information Requirements, Media Richness and Structural Design," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 32(5), pages 554-571, May.
    14. Cho, Charles H. & Patten, Dennis M., 2007. "The role of environmental disclosures as tools of legitimacy: A research note," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 32(7-8), pages 639-647.
    15. Wiseman, Joanne, 1982. "An evaluation of environmental disclosures made in corporate annual reports," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 7(1), pages 53-63, January.
    16. Lee, Lung-Fei, 1983. "Generalized Econometric Models with Selectivity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 51(2), pages 507-512, March.
    17. Heckman, James, 2013. "Sample selection bias as a specification error," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 31(3), pages 129-137.
    18. Cormier, Denis & Magnan, Michel, 2003. "Environmental reporting management: a continental European perspective," Journal of Accounting and Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 43-62.
    19. David L. Deephouse & Suzanne M. Carter, 2005. "An Examination of Differences Between Organizational Legitimacy and Organizational Reputation," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(2), pages 329-360, March.
    20. Hirst, De & Koonce, L & Simko, Pj, 1995. "Investor Reactions To Financial Analysts Research Reports," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(2), pages 335-351.
    21. Dennis M. Patten, 2002. "Media exposure, public policy pressure, and environmental disclosure: an examination of the impact of tri data availability," Accounting Forum, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(2), pages 152-171, June.
    22. Patten, Dennis M., 1991. "Exposure, legitimacy, and social disclosure," Journal of Accounting and Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 10(4), pages 297-308.
    23. Yue Li & Gordon D. Richardson & Daniel B. Thornton, 1997. "Corporate Disclosure of Environmental Liability Information: Theory and Evidence," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 14(3), pages 435-474, September.
    24. Patten, Dennis M., 2005. "The accuracy of financial report projections of future environmental capital expenditures: a research note," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 30(5), pages 457-468, July.
    25. Mills, Dixie L. & Gardner, Mona J., 1984. "Financial profiles and the disclosure of expenditures for socially responsible purposes," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 12(4), pages 407-424, December.
    26. Williams, S. Mitchell & Ho Wern Pei, Carol-Anne, 1999. "Corporate social disclosures by listed companies on their web sites: an international comparison," The International Journal of Accounting, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 389-419, August.
    27. Al-Tuwaijri, Sulaiman A. & Christensen, Theodore E. & Hughes, K. II, 2004. "The relations among environmental disclosure, environmental performance, and economic performance: a simultaneous equations approach," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 29(5-6), pages 447-471.
    28. Roberts, Robin W., 1992. "Determinants of corporate social responsibility disclosure: An application of stakeholder theory," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 17(6), pages 595-612, August.
    29. Kim, Peter H. & Dirks, Kurt T. & Cooper, Cecily D. & Ferrin, Donald L., 2006. "When more blame is better than less: The implications of internal vs. external attributions for the repair of trust after a competence- vs. integrity-based trust violation," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 99(1), pages 49-65, January.
    30. Hodge, Frank & Hopkins, Patrick E. & Pratt, Jamie, 2006. "Management reporting incentives and classification credibility: The effects of reporting discretion and reputation," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 31(7), pages 623-634, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Denis Cormier & Michel Magnan, 2015. "The Economic Relevance of Environmental Disclosure and its Impact on Corporate Legitimacy: An Empirical Investigation," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(6), pages 431-450, September.
    2. Aerts, Walter & Cormier, Denis & Magnan, Michel, 2008. "Corporate environmental disclosure, financial markets and the media: An international perspective," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(3), pages 643-659, January.
    3. Charles H. Cho & Jonathan Maurice & Emmanuelle Nègre & Marie-Anne Verdier, 2016. "Is environmental disclosure good for the environment? A meta-analysis and research agenda," Post-Print halshs-01369422, HAL.
    4. Denis Cormier & Marie-Josée Ledoux & Michel Magnan, 2010. "The Informational Contribution of Social and Environmental Disclosures for Investors," Post-Print hal-00481571, HAL.
    5. Michelon, Giovanna & Pilonato, Silvia & Ricceri, Federica, 2015. "CSR reporting practices and the quality of disclosure: An empirical analysis," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 59-78.
    6. Jean-Noël Chauvey & Sophie Giordano-Spring & Charles Cho & Dennis Patten, 2015. "The Normativity and Legitimacy of CSR Disclosure: Evidence from France," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 130(4), pages 789-803, September.
    7. Cheng-Li Huang & Fan-Hua Kung, 2010. "Drivers of Environmental Disclosure and Stakeholder Expectation: Evidence from Taiwan," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 96(3), pages 435-451, October.
    8. Camélia Radu & Claude Francoeur, 2017. "Does Innovation Drive Environmental Disclosure? A New Insight into Sustainable Development," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(7), pages 893-911, November.
    9. Sónia Maria da Silva Monteiro & Beatriz Aibar‐Guzmán, 2010. "Determinants of environmental disclosure in the annual reports of large companies operating in Portugal," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 17(4), pages 185-204, July.
    10. van Staden, Chris J. & Hooks, Jill, 2007. "A comprehensive comparison of corporate environmental reporting and responsiveness," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 197-210.
    11. Burnett, Royce D. & Hansen, Don R., 2008. "Ecoefficiency: Defining a role for environmental cost management," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 33(6), pages 551-581, August.
    12. Radhakrishnan, Suresh & Tsang, Albert & Liu, Rubing, 2018. "A Corporate Social Responsibility Framework for Accounting Research," The International Journal of Accounting, Elsevier, vol. 53(4), pages 274-294.
    13. Charles H. Cho & Martin Freedman & Dennis M. Patten, 2009. "Corporate Disclosure Of Environmental Capital Expenditures: A Test Of Alternative Theories," Post-Print halshs-00459410, HAL.
    14. Patten, Dennis M., 2005. "The accuracy of financial report projections of future environmental capital expenditures: a research note," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 30(5), pages 457-468, July.
    15. María Luisa Pajuelo Moreno & Teresa Duarte-Atoche, 2019. "Relationship between Sustainable Disclosure and Performance—An Extension of Ullmann’s Model," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(16), pages 1-33, August.
    16. Dong Ding & Bin Liu & Millicent Chang, 2023. "Carbon Emissions and TCFD Aligned Climate-Related Information Disclosures," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 182(4), pages 967-1001, February.
    17. Emerald Edem Welbeck & Godfred Matthew Yaw Owusu & Rita Amoah Bekoe & John Amoah Kusi, 2017. "Determinants of environmental disclosures of listed firms in Ghana," International Journal of Corporate Social Responsibility, Springer, vol. 2(1), pages 1-12, December.
    18. Stefano Fontana & Daniela Coluccia & Silvia Solimene, 2019. "VAIC as a Tool for Measuring Intangibles Value in Voluntary Multi-Stakeholder Disclosure," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 10(4), pages 1679-1699, December.
    19. Luo, Le & Tang, Qingliang, 2014. "Does voluntary carbon disclosure reflect underlying carbon performance?," Journal of Contemporary Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(3), pages 191-205.
    20. Amel Ben Rhouma, 2006. "Mesure De La Qualite De La Divulgation Societale Des Entreprises Francaises," Post-Print halshs-00548088, HAL.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:aosoci:v:34:y:2009:i:1:p:1-27. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/aos .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.