Media coverage and voluntary environmental disclosures: A developing country exploratory experiment

Abstract

This research extends the developing-country environmental disclosure literature by exploring managerial perceptions of different environmental events and the impact of media coverage on management's decision to provide annual report environmental disclosure (ARED) voluntarily. Using the broad lens of stakeholder theory in conjunction with media agenda setting theory, a Malaysian experiment is initiated to gain insights into the type of ARED strategy preferred by management. The study also examines whether these preferences are affected by such factors as: (1) the stakeholder's perceived significance of the environmental event; (2) the stakeholder's threat/cooperation potential; and (3) the impact of media publicity on the featured event. The results suggest that the influence of media coverage on management's preferred ARED strategy is most pronounced when the event is of a negative nature and is generally ‘unobtrusive’, such that the stakeholders concerned have less direct experience on the issue.