The influence of countries' climate change-related institutional profile on voluntary environmental disclosures

Abstract

This paper analyzes how the regulative, normative, and cultural dimensions of institu- tions exert pressure both on companies' decisions to voluntarily disclose environ- mental information and on the quality of the information disclosed. Prior research has focused on the influence of economic, disclosure, and generic institutional deter- minants, although little attention has been paid to the analysis of the influence exerted by climate change-related institutional pillars. The results show that the three institutional pillars have different effects as regards both the decision to respond and the quality of disclosure. The regulative pillar positively influences the response decision but does not influence disclosure quality. The normative pillar positively affects both the propensity of companies to disclose and the quality of the informa- tion reported. Meanwhile, the cultural pillar positively influences disclosure quality, but it has no effect on firms' decisions to disclose environmental information. This paper is the first to analyze whether the institutional profile of climate change in different countries influences voluntary environmental disclosures.