Legitimacy Strategies in Corporate Environmental Reporting: A Longitudinal Analysis of German DAX Companies’ Disclosed Objectives

Philipp Borgstedt (), Ann-Marie Nienaber (), Bernd Liesenkötter () and Gerhard Schewe ()
Additional contact information
Philipp Borgstedt: University of Muenster
Ann-Marie Nienaber: Coventry University
Bernd Liesenkötter: University of Muenster
Gerhard Schewe: University of Muenster

Journal of Business Ethics, 2019, vol. 158, issue 1, No 10, 177-200

Abstract: Abstract Ecological objectives in environmental reports usually promise a high degree of environmental responsibilities in a company’s activities. Several studies have already highlighted that most companies do not keep their promises since stakeholders’ expectations and a company’s capabilities for internal adjustments do not always match. Thus, a company might use strategic reporting in order not to endanger its legitimacy. However, no study so far has demonstrated how companies use different legitimacy strategies in reporting their environmental objectives over time. To achieve this in our study, we focus primarily on findings from legitimacy theory in combination with the legitimacy strategies suggested by Lindblom (in: Gray, Bebbington, Gray (eds) Social and environmental accounting: developing the field, Sage, Los Angeles, pp 51–63, 2010). To test our theoretical framework empirically, we analyze 260 corporate environmental reports of German DAX companies between the years 2000–2014 by coding all disclosed objectives within these reports. Based on this longitudinal approach, we are able to identify reporting patterns of the different companies that provide insights into those companies’ environmental reporting legitimacy strategies. Overall, this study contributes to research on voluntary disclosure by showing that a comprehensive analysis of the reporting pattern of disclosed objectives allows the identification of certain legitimacy strategies.

Keywords: Corporate Environmental Reporting; Ecological sustainability; Environmental reports; Legitimacy strategies; Legitimacy theory; Transparency (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10551-017-3708-y Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:jbuset:v:158:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1007_s10551-017-3708-y

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... cs/journal/10551/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s10551-017-3708-y

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Business Ethics is currently edited by Michelle Greenwood and R. Edward Freeman

More articles in Journal of Business Ethics from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().