Abstract
Increasing attention to serious environmental problems has caused the public to put forth more pressure on firms to fulfill their responsibilities to society at large. The establishment of a strict and mandatory environmental information disclosure (EID) mechanism has become particularly urgent. This study takes A-share listed firms in China’s pharmaceutical manufacturing industry from 2011 to 2019 as a case. Considering the impact of the quality of EID on financial performance (FP), the moderating effects of internal and external factors, such as environmental regulation (ER), media pressure (MP), and executive compensation (EC), are analyzed. The results showed that the quality of EID had a negative effect on FP. It is difficult for EC to have a moderating effect on the relationship between the two. ER and MP, which are intended to exert strong external means of governance, cannot have a positive impact. Differences in regional marketization and ownership affect the moderators. This study highlights the difficulty of improving the environmental behavior of firms even while under the direct pressure from internal and external stakeholders and provides a reference for regulatory authorities to improve the EID mechanism.
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All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article and its supplementary information files.
Abbreviations
- EC:
-
Executive compensation
- EID:
-
Environmental information disclosure
- ER:
-
Environmental regulation
- FP:
-
Financial performance
- MP:
-
Media pressure
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Funding
This work was supported by the Humanities and Social Sciences Research Planning Fund of Ministry of Education of China (21YJA790073) and the Natural Science Basic Research Program of Shaanxi (2020JM-467). We thank the American Journal Experts (AJE) for English language polishing.
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All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection, and analysis were performed by Yi Yang, Fan Yang, and Xinxin Zhao. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Yi Yang and Fan Yang and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Highlights
• The moderating effect exacerbates the negative impact of EID on financial performance.
• Executive compensation cannot reverse EID’s negative impact on financial performance.
• The moderating effect of environmental regulation depends on media pressure.
• Differences in regional marketization and ownership affect the moderators.
• Collaborative governance is essential to improve firms’ environmental behavior.
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Yang, Y., Yang, F. & Zhao, X. The impact of the quality of environmental information disclosure on financial performance: the moderating effect of internal and external stakeholders. Environ Sci Pollut Res 29, 68796–68814 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-20553-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-20553-y