Soft or hard information? A trade-off selection of environmental disclosures by way of peer imitation and geographical distance

Sheng Yao and Shiyi Li

Applied Economics, 2018, vol. 50, issue 30, 3315-3330

Abstract: With the public pressure increasing, increasingly more number of studies explore how managers respond to outer pressures by using the environmental disclosure tool. However, previous studies ignore systematic research on the condition, duplicity and consequences of environmental disclosures. This article studies how geographical distance and peer imitation influence managers’ selection of soft and hard environmental disclosures and their economic consequences based on cost-benefit trade-off models and empirical data. The results indicate that when public pressure increases sharply, geographical distance has a negative influence on hard environmental disclosures, and peer imitation has a positive influence on soft environmental disclosures. Under the joint effect of two factors, managers tend to disclose soft environmental information more than hard environmental information, which cannot only mitigate potential risks but also ensure good economic consequences. To restrict managers’ opportunistic disclosure behaviour and improve the disclosing level and quality of environmental information, detailed standard norms and heavy punishment measures should be established, and regulating departments should regulate the disclosure behaviour of distanced firms and check the redundancy of soft environmental information to ensure whether the same information is repeatedly disclosed in the annual reports.

Date: 2018
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DOI: 10.1080/00036846.2017.1420891

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