earticle

영어

Prior studies relying on voluntary disclosure theory and, alternatively, legitimacy theory report contrasting results for the relation between environmental disclosure and environmental performance, and as such, we attempt to determine which theoretical base appears to capture the specific associations we investigate. Especially, we investigate how environmental information voluntarily disclosed by Korean firms relates to the companies’ underlying ecological performance. Disclosure is scored using an index developed by Wiseman (1982), Cho and Patten (2007), and Clarkson et al. (2008, 2011) based on Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Guidelines and the environmental performance measure is based on TRI (toxics release inventory) emission data available from the National Institute of Chemical Safety (NICS). The sample consists of 31 Korean manufacturing firms (62 firm-year) disclosing environmental information voluntarily, and with TRI and CO2 emissions and financial data available for both 2010 and 2014. The findings are as follows. First, descriptive statistics indicate that there was modest improvement in environmental performance between 2010 and 2014, while tests of differences in mean and median values on the remaining variables are statistically insignificant at conventional levels. Second, the results consistently indicate that the quantity and quality of environmental disclosure is positively associated with environmental performance (TRI reduction). These results suggest firms with good environmental performance disclose a greater magnitude of environmental information. The results also hold for different types of environmental information that may more directly impact TRI emissions reductions. Our findings thus provide evidence in support of the voluntary disclosure theory arguments. Third, the results do not find that firms with lower emissions (and there by better environmental performance) in fact rely relatively more on hard environmental disclosures than do firms with greater emissions(poorer environment performance). Fourth, results show that there is no differences in the use of non-monetary disclosures across firms from environmentally sensitive industries, and for firms from environmentally non- sensitive industries, monetary environmental disclosures are higher for worse environmental performers than for better environmental performers. In general, our findings provide additional evidence that companies do appear to use financial report environmental disclosures as a voluntary disclosing tool. However, given the positive relation we document between environmental performance and the magnitude of disclosed environmental information, it appears that, at least in the Korean setting, firms are more concerned with improving environmental performance than enhancing their environmental image.