Search results

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the potential benefits for firms that report more on environmental activities, with regard to two important categories of stakeholders: shareholders and customers.

To avoid the endogeneity problem, the authors apply the system generalized method of moments approach by estimating the relationship between environmental reporting and firm performance with regard both to levels and first differences simultaneously.

Based on the 120 largest publicly traded companies in France from 2007 to 2011, results suggest that shareholders interpret and perceive firms’ environmental information disclosure differently than consumers. However, reporting on environmental duties is perceived favorably by both customers and shareholders for firms with better environmental performance. In the same way, an increase in the level of environmental reporting is valuable in terms of customer-related performance (i.e. sales growth and profit margin) and in terms of market value (i.e. Tobin’s q) for firms operating in customer proximity industries. In a supplementary analysis, the authors found that, for reporting on climate change (a component of the combined environmental reporting index), positive customer and shareholder perceptions are acquired in particular through superior environmental performance and proximity to the final customer.

When reporting on their environmental duties, environmental performance and proximity to the final customers play a critical role for firms in obtaining the necessary support of key stakeholders.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to explore the difference between shareholders’ and customers’ perception of environmental reporting according to firms’ environmental performance and to their proximity to the final customer.

This paper aims to investigate whether providing voluntary external assurance on voluntary environmental information by firms operating in environmentally sensitive industries (ESI) is relevant in terms of market value. It also examines how various characteristics of assurance statements (i.e. level of assurance, scope of assurance and provider of assurance) affect the value-relevance of environmental disclosure by ESI firms.

To mitigate the endogeneity problem, the authors use the two-step generalized method of moments estimation approach.

Focusing on annual and social reports of French companies listed in the SBF120 index, results show that environmental disclosure by ESI firms and its assurance are destructive in terms of market value. Moreover, while providing a broader scope of assurance and having a professional accountant as the assurance provider enhance the value relevance of environmental reporting of the whole sample, this is unlikely to be the case for ESI firms. In particular, a higher level of environmental disclosure is financially rewarded by market participants for ESI firms that provide a higher level of assurance.

The study provides a better understanding of the circumstances under which market participants assign value to voluntary environmental information disclosed by companies operating in ESI. It also provides insights into the value added to different characteristics inherent in the quality of assurance provided with regard to environmental disclosure.

The study indicates that the institutional context of the relationship between the firm and its shareholders influence the value obtained from assurance. Results provide value insights regarding cultural and legal dimensions of environmental reporting.

The study extends the prior literature on the capital market benefits of voluntary assurance practices by focusing on the French legal environment. France can be considered as a new institutional context that has been little addressed by the existing literature.

The study aims to examine the influence of female chief executive officer (CEO) and female chief financial officer (CFO) on the linkage between internationalization and firm performance.

This study used 2926 firm-year observations of nonfinancial firms listed on the Pakistan Stock Exchange over the period 2012–2021. This study used ordinary least squares regression method to test the hypotheses, and additionally, generalized method of moments estimation and fixed effect analysis were used to check for the robustness of the results.

Using the framework of upper echelons theory and resource dependence theory, this study reports that internationalization has a positive impact on firm performance. Moreover, the results show that the presence of female CEO and female CFO strengthens the positive relationship between internationalization and firm performance. The results add to the gender diversity literature by highlighting the positive role of female CEOs and female CFOs on the internationalization and performance of firms in a male-dominated society.

This study adds to the limited literature on the internationalization of businesses in an emerging market and provides empirical support to upper echelons theory and resource dependence theory by highlighting the benefits brought to the firm through female CEOs and female CFOs.