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Monitoring Intensity and Stakeholders’ Orientation: How Does Governance Affect Social and Environmental Disclosure?

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Abstract

The aim of the paper is to investigate the effects of the corporate governance model on social and environmental disclosure (SED). We analyze the disclosures of the 100 U.S. Best Corporate Citizens in the period 2005–2007, and we posit a series of simultaneous relationships between different attributes of the governance system and a multidimensional construct of corporate social performance (CSP). We consider both the extent and the quality of SED, with the purpose of identifying increasing levels of corporate commitment to stakeholders and shedding some light on whether SED is used as a signal or rather as a legitimacy tool. Our empirical evidence shows that the stakeholders’ orientation of corporate governance is positively associated with CSP and SED. On the other hand, we do not find support for the monitoring intensity of corporate governance being negatively associated with social performance. We also find that CSP in the “product” dimension is positively associated with the extent and quality of SED whilst CSP in the “people” dimension is negatively associated with the extent and quality of SED. At a time when shareholders and stakeholders share more common aspects in their relationships with firms, this is a significant area to explore and this research fills an important lacuna in this respect.

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Notes

  1. A discussion of how these characteristics are linked to monitoring intensity is beyond the scope of this paper. For a review of the literature on various monitoring mechanisms, please refer to Gillan (2006). Moreover, the ability of these separate characteristics to proxy for the monitoring intensity of the governance structure is an empirical issue and it will be addressed using a latent variable in the empirical model later in the paper.

  2. Whilst belonging to the list of the Best Corporate Citizens, these companies present both strengths and weaknesses as the ratings present both positive and negative values. Thus, KLD’s social performance data of the Top 100 Best Corporate Citizens provides a great degree of variability in the behavior of the firms. Moreover by using a period of 3 years (2005, 2006, and 2007) we are able to analyze the company’s longer-term social performance. Nonetheless, we recognize that the generalization of the findings of the study may be limited given the fact that the sample consisted of the most highly rated companies.

  3. Although diversity is a rich concept and would include gender, race, age, possible disabilities, etc., given the operational difficulties in proxying for such multiple aspects of diversity, we will rely only on the presence of women on the board, i.e., gender diversity, in line with Coffey and Fryxell (1991).

  4. http://www.business-ethics.com/BE100_all.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank Thomas Clarke (Corporate Governance Section Editor), the referees, Charles Cho, the participants to the 1st French Congress on Social and Environment Accounting Research and at the research workshop at Concordia University for their valuable comments and feedback.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Birmingham Business School, University of Birmingham, University House, Edgbaston, Birmingham, B15 2TT, UK

    Christine Mallin

  2. Department of Economics and Management, University of Padova, via del Santo 33, 35123, Padova, Italy

    Giovanna Michelon

  3. Department of Economics, University of Bologna, Piazza Scaravilli 2, 40126, Bologna, Italy

    Davide Raggi

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  1. Christine Mallin
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  2. Giovanna Michelon
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Correspondence to Christine Mallin.

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Mallin, C., Michelon, G. & Raggi, D. Monitoring Intensity and Stakeholders’ Orientation: How Does Governance Affect Social and Environmental Disclosure?. J Bus Ethics 114, 29–43 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-012-1324-4

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