Government Information Disclosure Research Articles

Does internal control improve enterprise environmental, social, and governance information disclosure? Evidence from China

AbstractEnvironmental, social, and governance (ESG) is a relatively new concept that emphasizes how to contribute to creating sustainable businesses. However, research on factors that influence ESG development is insufficient. This study explores how internal control influence enterprise ESG information disclosure, using 2009–2021 data from China's A‐share listed companies. The findings show a substantial positive correlation between internal control quality and corporate ESG information disclosure. Particularly, the internal control quality significantly affects corporate governance information disclosure. Moreover, the connection between internal control quality and enterprise ESG information disclosure is significantly and positively moderated by media attention. Specifically, negative media evaluations have significant impacts on enterprises. The main findings remain valid even after conducting multiple robustness tests, such as the lag test, propensity score matching, instrumental variable method, and alternative measurements for the key variables. This study widens the theoretical research frontier of internal and external supervision mechanisms.

Sustainability Reporting and Performance of Selected Quoted Firms in Nigeria

The performance of quoted firms listed on the Nigerian Exchange Group (NGX) is crucial for driving economic development, job creation, and wealth generation in Nigeria. Despite the growing interest in sustainability practices among Nigerian firms, there is a lack of empirical research examining the relationship between sustainability reporting and financial performance. To address this gap, this study conducted a comprehensive analysis of the link between sustainability reporting and the financial performance of quoted firms in Nigeria. This research employed an ex-post facto research approach, utilizing data from annual reports, financial statements, and sustainability reports of 153 publicly listed companies on the Nigerian Exchange Group (NGX). Through quantitative methods, the study assessed the extent and quality of sustainability reporting among Nigerian companies and its relationship with financial performance indicators. A purposive sampling method was used to select a sample of 10 firms known for their voluntary disclosure of information in financial reports. The study spanned from 2012 to 2021, totaling 10 years, and involved both descriptive and inferential statistical analyses of the collected data. Using regression analysis, the study found a statistically significant positive impact of sustainability reporting metrics - including governance information disclosure, credibility information disclosure, and environmental profile disclosure - on firm performance. This suggests that companies in Nigeria that disclose information regarding governance policies, credibility, and environmental practices tend to perform better financially.This study concluded that companies that engage in transparent reporting regarding governance policies, credibility, and environmental practices demonstrate better financial performance. Based on the findings, it is recommended that Nigerian regulators and policymakers encourage and support sustainability reporting initiatives among quoted firms.

Assessing the Relationship between Corporate Social Responsibility and R&D Effectiveness of Firms

Practices of corporate social responsibility often generate synergetic effects and improve financial and overall firm’s performance. However, in the high-tech industries, research and development (R&D) efficiency remains a key element of development strategy, and a shift towards sustainable activities can be considered as a trade-off. This study investigates the empirical link between corporate social responsibility practices and R&D effectiveness in R&D-intensive industries. Specifically, this research assesses the impact of environmental, social, and governance information disclosure, the availability of third-party rating, and long-termism on R&D returns. We employ the Hausman–Taylor estimator to analyze three R&D-intensive industries, namely pharmaceuticals, biotechnology and software, for the period from 2012 to 2019. Empirical results show that, in general, higher values of corporate social responsibility metrics are associated with the weaker R&D returns. The findings of this research might be meaningful for managers in making informed decisions with respect to corporate social responsibility practices.

The Power of Public Oversight: The Effects of Environmental Agency Information Disclosure on Environmental Investment by Polluting Enterprises

Abstract Collusion between government and business presents a significant challenge to environmental governance, yet academic literature rarely addresses effective measures to address this key problem. This study addresses this gap by leveraging government information disclosure data from urban environmental protection agencies in China to empirically examine the impact of such disclosures on environmental investments by Chinese polluting enterprises. Our analysis reveals the positive effects of government information disclosure by enforcement agencies on environmental investments, particularly for enterprises characterized by higher degrees of government-business collusion. Unlike traditional supervision methods from higher authorities to lower ones, government information disclosure operates under public oversight, which can mitigate shortcomings in supervision scope and agency costs. Thus, the findings of this study offer valuable insights for addressing pollution governance challenges. Keywords: Government information disclosure, Collusion, Environmental investment, Polluting enterprises.

Impact of Environmental Regulation on Corporate Green Technological Innovation: The Moderating Role of Corporate Governance and Environmental Information Disclosure

Environmental degradation is an important issue facing the world today. Microcosmically, green technical innovation is needed to decrease environmental pollution. Therefore, exploring the relationship between the two is of great significance for promoting environmental protection and sustainable development. Thus, this research elucidates the interaction between green innovation (GI) and environmental regulations (ERs). This study utilizes the fixed effects model to examine how government environmental protection subsidies (EPSs) in market-incentive ER and environmental management system certification (EMSC) in voluntary participatory ER affect GI among listed companies in China. The sample observation period is from 2012 to 2021. Additionally, the impact of corporate governance (CGL) and environmental information disclosure (EID) on the relationship between ERs and GI within businesses is investigated. The empirical results show that both government environmental protection subsidies and environmental management system certification positively affect green innovation, and both corporate governance and environmental information disclosure positively moderate the impact of government environmental protection subsidies and environmental management system certification on green innovation. The above empirical results are still valid after a robustness test and can guide the formulation of government ERs, as well as corporate strategies for environmental management and GI.

EXAMINING THE EFFECTS OF AND MODERATING INFLUENCES ON ENVIRONMENTAL, SOCIAL AND GOVERNANCE INFORMATION DISCLOSURE ON VALUE-AT-RISK: EVIDENCE FROM CHINESE LISTED COMPANIES

Generally, research on the effects of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) information disclosure on listed companies is primarily limited to developed countries. By contrast, the current study is located in China and analyses whether ESG reduces the downside risk of listed companies in China, and whether political connections and institutional investors moderate this relationship. This study uses Chinese A-share listed companies from the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets from 2010 to 2021 as research samples. Results demonstrated that the inhibitory effect of enhancing ESG performance on enterprise risk is more significant in non-heavy polluting industries, non-state-owned enterprises, and enterprises in areas with low levels of marketisation. This study explores the economic implications of ESG performance from a Value-at-Risk (VaR) perspective, enriching the relevant research on ESG rating in China and providing a fresh perspective to better elucidate the economic significance of companies improving their ESG performance. This study introduces institutional investors and political connections as two moderating variables to analyse their effect on the relationship between ESG performance and VaR. In addition, heterogeneity analysis is carried out in combination with the industry, region, and ownership nature of listed companies to test the “insurance” and “information” effects of ESG performance, to provide decision-making references for investors, enterprise managers, and regulators.

Pengaruh Pengungkapan Informasi Lingkungan, Sosial, Tata Kelola, Ekonomi, dan Pendekatan Manajemen Terhadap Kebijakan Dividen

This research aims to determine the influence of Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG) disclosure, Economic disclosure, and Management Approach on Dividend Policy proxied by Dividend Payout Ratio and Dividend Yield. The study incorporates five control variables: company size, age, leverage, profitability, and liquidity. The data used in this research are secondary data obtained from the financial and sustainability reports of companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange in the IDX ESG Leaders Index for the period 2020-2022. The results indicate that the disclosure of environmental, governance, and management information does not have a significant influence on dividend policy, both in terms of Dividend Payout Ratio and Dividend Yield measurements. This finding suggests that environmental, governance, and management disclosures cannot be used as a basis for decision-making for stakeholders. Social disclosure has no significant influence on Dividend Payout Ratio, but it has a significant negative impact on Dividend Yield, indicating that social disclosure affects dividend policy negatively. On the other hand, economic disclosure shows a significant influence on dividend policy, both in terms of Dividend Payout Ratio and Dividend Yield measurements.

Message-sidedness in performance information disclosure and citizens’ perceived accountability

ABSTRACT Governments disclose performance information to citizens on the assumption that doing so helps improve public accountability. The previous literature implies that citizens’ interpretations of such information are shaped by the information’s presentation types, however, it is not known whether one-sided messages (only positive information) and two-sided messages (adding negative attributes to the one-sided messages) have different effects on citizens’ perceptions regarding government information disclosure. Drawing on attribution-correspondence theory and utilizing a large-scale survey experiment conducted in Korea, this study demonstrates that two-sided performance message is more effective in improving the citizens’ perceptions of governmental transparency and accountability than one-sided message.

The Interactive Relationship Between Government Information Disclosure and Network Governance: A Case Study of Service-Oriented Government

The Interactive Relationship Between Government Information Disclosure and Network Governance: A Case Study of Service-Oriented Government

Do sustainability reporting standards affect analysts’ forecast accuracy?

PurposeThis study aims to contribute to the emerging debate about materiality with novel insights about the signaling effects related to the disclosure of environmental, social and governance (ESG) information using the guidelines released by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB).Design/methodology/approachAn empirical assessment using panel data analysis was built to evaluate the relationship between sustainability reporting standards and analysts’ forecast accuracy.FindingsThe analysis revealed that the proliferation of sustainability reports prepared on mandatory or voluntary basis mitigated the signaling effects related to the disclosure of ESG information by companies. Furthermore, the additional analysis conducted considering sustainability reporting quality and ESG performance revealed the existence of mixed effects on analysts’ forecasts accuracy. Therefore, the insights highlighted the need to consider a cautionary approach in evaluating the contribution of ESG data to financial evaluations.Practical implicationsThe practical implications consist of identifying criticisms related to disclosing ESG information by listed companies. In detail, the analysis underlines the need to enhance reporting standards’ interoperability to support the development of more accurate analysis by investors and financial experts.Social implicationsThe analysis reveals increasing attention investors pay to socially responsible initiatives, confirming that financial markets consider sustainability reporting as a strategic driver to engage with stakeholders and investors.Originality/valueThis research represents one of the first attempts to explore differences between GRI and SASB using an empirical approach.

Public Demand Oriented Quality Evaluation Model for Rainstorm Disaster Information Disclosure

By investigating the current situation of information disclosure and public demand during rainstorm disaster in Henan Province, this paper builds a model of factors affecting the quality of information disclosure characterized by rainstorm disaster information based on TOE framework theory, metadata evaluation model, resource based theory and resource confirmation theory. With the help of the current situation and demand characteristics of the public’s actual information acquisition, it designs a model with information disclosure content quality, information disclosure accessibility, information disclosure process completeness 10 test dimensions of government information disclosure ability, government feedback ability, minimum information disclosure acceptance ability, information disclosure technology support ability, right to know protection ability, privacy protection ability, right to equality protection ability, and 35 test items of rainstorm disaster information disclosure quality impact factor evaluation scale. The research provides help for government information disclosure to more accurately identify public needs, provides targeted evaluation models and operable evaluation models for rainstorm disaster information quality evaluation in Henan, and provides ideas and strategies for improving rainstorm disaster information quality.

The effect of environment, society, and governance (ESG) information disclosure on high-quality development of Chinese companies: Investigating the mediating role of green technology innovation

China listed companies play a significant role in fostering the economy's quality development and are leaders in the application of ESG principles by businesses. The application of ESG principles by listed companies is crucial to achieving a ‘win-win’ situation of social benefits and corporate economic benefits and raising the bar for high-quality development. Nevertheless, studies on the connection between corporate high-quality development and ESG information disclosure by China listed companies are few and contentious. This paper examines the role that ESG information disclosure plays in the development of corporate high-quality and the intermediary mechanism of green technology innovation in enterprises using panel data of China A-share non-financial listed companies from 2013 to 2022. The empirical results show that ESG disclosure and its three dimensions can significantly promote high-quality enterprise development. The study also discovers that high-quality enterprise development and ESG information disclosure are partially mediated by green technology innovation. The article’s findings serve as a guide for businesses, investors, and governments looking to adopt ESG practices.

An eye-tracking-based approach to evaluate the usability of government portal websites in pilot smart cities

PurposeThe study aims to pioneer an innovative approach for the evaluation of government portal websites (GPWs) by introducing an eye-tracking-based method. The research meticulously pinpoints and analyses the distinct usability issues and challenges that users encounter while navigating and interacting with GPWs.Design/methodology/approachThis study devises an eye-tracking-based GPW usability evaluation approach, which focuses on the major functions (i.e. government information disclosure, government services and interactive responses) of GPWs. An Entropy Weighted Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to an Ideal Solution (EW-TOPSIS) method is employed to process eye-tracking indicator results for deriving GPW usability results.FindingsThe proposed approach is demonstrated to assess the usability of 12 GPWs in pilot smart cities in China, and it is found that most GPWs have lower-than-average usability. GPWs with low usability require more cognitive load that exhibit increased fixation and saccade. The comparisons among the GPW usability results from (1) the eye-tracking experiment, (2) questionnaire surveys and (3) the ready-made performance evaluation report validate the effectiveness of eye-tracking-based GPW usability evaluation.Originality/valueThe work contributes to shifting the GPW usability evaluation approach from a subjective judgment paradigm to an objective paradigm, as well as provides implications for enhancing GPW usability, including improving search function, reducing website complexity and prioritizing user needs.

Research on the evolutionary game of multi-agent collaborative supervision of enterprise green behavior driven by big data

Based on evolutionary game theory, this paper constructs a tripartite game model—involving the government, enterprises, and environmental protection social organizations—to explore an effective path for the collaborative supervision of corporate green behavior by multiple agents in the context of modern digital technology. The impacts of participating agent strategies are analyzed numerically, and the key factors affecting the ideal state are explored and simulated. The main conclusions and insights are as follows: 1) An increase in government information disclosure can effectively constrain enterprises’ behavior, by confronting them with the prospect of loss of reputation. However, if the enterprises’ loss of reputation is excessive, they will feel over-regulated, which is not conducive their carrying out green innovation. Information disclosure does, however, have a role to play in transmitting environmental information to the public and environmental protection social organizations in a timely manner to reduce the information gap and promote the formation of multi-dimensional common governance. 2) By using big data, the government can not only save on government costs, but also more accurately identify and monitor in real time enterprises that are causing pollution and that are not using green technology. This can notably promote the evolution of all parties to an ideal state and improve the effectiveness of regulation. 3) When environmental social organizations provide enterprises with the necessary resource supports, this can significantly promote improvements in the enterprises’ level of enterprises’ green technology innovation. 4) Increased willingness on the part of the public to supervise can enhance the interaction between the public and environmental social organizations, prompting those organizations to actively carry out environmental protection activities and increase their popularity among the public, which will have a positive effect on how the system involving government, enterprises, and environmental protection social organizations evolves.

A STUDY ON ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION DISCLOSURE BY INDIAN GOVERNMENT AND INDUSTRIES

A STUDY ON ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION DISCLOSURE BY INDIAN GOVERNMENT AND INDUSTRIES

Improving social resilience amid the COVID-19 epidemic: A system dynamics model.

Social resilience is a key factor in disaster management, but compared to resilience in other fields, research on social resilience is still limited to assessment or evaluation, and there is still a lack of dynamic and procedural research, which is also a challenge. This article constructs a causal feedback model and a system dynamics model of social resilience during the COVID-19 epidemic, so as to analyze the dynamic characteristics and improvement path of social resilience. After verifying the effectiveness of the model, model simulation is conducted and the following important conclusions are drawn: social resilience dynamically changes during the research cycle and is influenced by social entity behavior and social mechanisms; The sensitivity factors for the two variables that measure social resilience, namely panic degree and damage degree, are the real-time information acquisition of public and the epidemic awareness of local government, respectively. Therefore, the path to enhancing social resilience should be pursued from both the public and government perspectives, including improving the public's ability to access real-time information, increasing the timeline of government information disclosure, and enhancing local governments' understanding and awareness of the epidemic.

Government Information Disclosure and the Expansion of Public Reason

In the process of deepening government reform and transforming government functions, the disclosure of government information has increasingly gained widespread attention in both academic and practical circles. Government information disclosure is based on the evolution of rational choice model in organizational decision-making, the introduction of information asymmetry assumption in game theory, and the impact of information asymmetry on the effectiveness of policy decision-making, etc., focusing on the alleviation of information asymmetry. This paper finds that government information disclosure is mainly aimed at expanding public rationality by enriching the amount of information in the government decision-making process, increasing the possibility of monitoring government decision-making behavior, and weakening the influence of subjective factors of decision-makers.

Protecting people with disabilities’ data privacy in government information disclosure: facilitation by procurator-led public-interest litigation

Improper processing of sensitive personal data concerning disabled people in government information disclosure not only violates their privacy rights but also leads to discrimination, stigmatization, and other serious secondary harm, that have long been overlooked. China’s procurator-led public-interest litigation system is a powerful tool for protecting the privacy rights of vulnerable groups. This paper contends that procurator-led public-interest litigation, as a supplement to and support for private-interest litigation, assists the Chinese government in fulfilling its international obligations to protect the right to privacy of disabled people.

The impact of government environmental attention on firms’ ESG performance: Evidence from China

Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) have been globally recognized as a pivotal driving force for achieving sustainable development goals. Extant studies have mainly focused on exploring its economic consequences, while evidence on how the public sector, especially local government, affects enterprises’ ESG performance is scarce. By manually extracting environment-related textual information from 2011 to 2020 urban government work reports, we quantify government environmental attention (GEA) and explore its impact on firms’ ESG performance. The result indicates that an increase in GEA enhances firms’ ESG performance. We confirm this finding using a range of robustness checks. Our mechanism analysis shows that GEA facilitates firms’ ESG performance by altering three environmental-related firm behaviors: green investment, environmental governance information disclosure, and green technology innovation. Heterogeneity analysis demonstrates that this positive effect differs in firm ownership, CEO experience, and factor intensity. Our findings provide insight for policymakers to propel firms to undertake more social responsibility.

Differences in Open Government Information among Departments with Different Responsibilities

ABSTRACTAlthough open government information awareness has enhanced since China implemented the Open Government Information Regulation, the complaints about the information disclosure work also increased. Previous research has ignored the impact of the department's responsibilities on information disclosure, which are essential as some departments handle information that should not be disclosed. From this standpoint, this paper is the first to analyze the differences in departments' open government information performance from their annual information openness reports. Variance and correlation analysis show that the potential harm of disclosure to third parties' legitimate rights and interests, the availability of relevant information, and duplicate requests can explain their differences in government information disclosure on request. Besides, this paper calls for an elastic criterion for openness evaluation and finds that the benchmark effect in previous research does not apply to departments with different responsibilities.