Sponsor
The authors gratefully acknowledge generous funding from the KPMG and University of Illinois’s Business Measurement Research Program.
Document Type
Post-Print
Publication Date
2007
Subjects
Sustainable development -- Finance, Social responsibility of business, Economic development -- Environmental aspects
Abstract
Corporate stakeholder relations are historically typified by power imbalances and mistrust, but in recent times, they are increasingly characterized by 'dialogue' based on mutual understanding and creative action. In this paper we consider corporate engagements with two external stakeholder groups, citizenship-focused non-governmental organizations (NGO) and institutional investors, and examine the potential association between these engagements and corporate disclosure of environmental information. Based on a sample of 183 firms over a three-year time period, we analyze the relationships between NGO engagement, investor activism and the quality of corporate voluntary environmental disclosure. Our findings suggest that engagement with skills-focused NGOs and the withdrawal of shareholder resolutions, as mechanisms for dialogue and negotiation, are strongly related to higher quality disclosure. We conclude with discussion of our findings in terms of modern governance structures influencing transparency in the corporate sector as well as comment on how corporate citizenship may, indeed, be making a difference.
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Persistent Identifier
https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/34985
Citation Details
Published as: R. Scott Marshall, Darrell Brown and Marlene Plumlee (2001). 'Negotiated' Transparency? Corporate Citizenship Engagement and Environmental Disclosure. The Journal of Corporate Citizenship, No. 28, pp. 43-60 (18 pages)
Description
This is the author's version of a work that was accepted for publication in The Journal of Corporate Citizenship. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in The Journal of Corporate Citizenship, pp. 43-60 (18 pages).