Public pressure, stakeholder management and environment disclosure

Abstract

This paper identifies the determinants which affect the environmental disclosure of company in China from a comprehensive perspective of public pressure and stakeholder management. Environmental disclosure data are collected from the annual reports of year 2008 which includes 200 firms from 21 industries. Both quantity assessment and quality assessment are employed to measure the level of environmental disclosure. Results show that there are significantly positive associations between the level of environmental disclosure industry types, firm size and state blockholder. The findings suggest that company characteristics such as size and industry are the antecedents of public pressure which drives the company to respond to rather than by impetus of profitability.