Governance structures and corporate environmental reporting policy: An international analysis

Abstract

The corporate governance structures of firms differ among countries for cultural, political or social reasons, among others, which may affect the environmental reporting policies of firms. In this regard, institutional contexts where firms are domiciled vary among regions, and consequently environmental reporting policies of firms will depend on the institutional factors where companies operate. The aim of this paper is to examine how institutional features such as investor protection, ownership dispersion and market‐oriented financial systems impact on environmental reporting policies of firms in different countries. The sample is composed of 5293 international companies, whose information was obtained from the Thomson Reuters Eikon database for the year 2015. The theoretical framework is based on institutional and stakeholder theories. Institutional theory argues that companies localized in the same institutional setting tend to behave in similar ways, and therefore the stakeholders’ attitudes toward environmental reporting will be similar. The findings report that companies operating in countries with high ownership dispersion and where the most important capital providers are capital markets are most likely to disclose environmental issues, while firms domiciled in countries with strong investor protection are not associated with environmental disclosure policies.