1. Long-term Environmental Performance Goals Disclosure: Investors' Reactions And Managers' Disclosure Choices
- Author
-
Zhu, Yulin
- Subjects
- Accounting
- Abstract
Environmental protection has emerged as a critical global concern, prompting corporations to enhance transparency through reporting on their environmental performance. On the other hand, management of these corporations has significant discretion over the environment-related reporting, including whether and how to set and disclose future environmental performance targets or goals. This dissertation focuses on corporations' long-term environmental goals for carbon emissions because both governments and corporations have increasingly made commitments to such long-term goals, such as achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 (Paris Agreement) and 2040 (Climate Pledge). This dissertation includes two essays to delve into the perspectives of two key stakeholders—investors, who utilize environmental performance information for investment decisions, and managers, who are responsible for setting and disclosing external environmental goals.In my first essay, I investigate investors’ perspectives on different environmental goal disclosures (i.e., long-term goals only vs. long-term with short-term goals) and also examine whether investors’ pro-environment values impact their judgments. The investigation centers on scenarios where a firm exhibits negative environmental performance, as future environmental goals become particularly relevant in such circumstances. Based on construal level theory, this study predicts that investors' different pro-environmental values shape their responses to companies’ environmental goals. The study further examines whether the presence of external commitments, like signing the Climate Pledge, impacts investors’ perspectives. To test my hypotheses, I conduct two 2 × 2 overlapping between-subjects experiments among 64 participants in a professional accounting conference. I manipulate a company’s environmental goal disclosure (long-term only vs. short-term in addition to long-term vs. short-term in addition to long-term with external commitments) and measure investors’ pro-environmental values (high vs. low). Findings of this study provide insights that investors’ reactions to environmental goals vary based on their pro-environmental values. Essay 2 investigates two factors influencing managers' decisions to adopt and disclose long-term environmental goals: industry peers’ disclosure behavior and the availability of carbon offsets. Grounded in moral reasoning theory, the hypothesis posits that managers are least likely to disclose long-term environmental goals when such disclosures are infrequent among industry peers, and carbon offset programs are unavailable. To test my hypotheses, I conduct a 2 × 2 between-subjects experiment among 57 MBA students who are current or future managers. In this experiment, I manipulate the disclosure behavior of industry peer firms (high vs. low industry peer disclosure of long-term environmental goals) and the availability of carbon offset (present vs. absent). The results support my hypothesis.
- Published
- 2024