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European firms’ corporate biodiversity disclosures and board gender diversity from 2002 to 2016

European firms’ corporate biodiversity disclosures and board gender diversity from 2002 to 2016
European firms’ corporate biodiversity disclosures and board gender diversity from 2002 to 2016
We examine how board gender diversity is associated with biodiversity disclosures of a firm, and whether the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and the EU biodiversity strategy reinforce this relationship. Using institutional theory and resource dependency theory, our sample comprises 4013 firm-year observations from European corporations covering data from 2002 to 2016. We use panel regressions with country, time and industry dummy variables to analyse the disclosure of biodiversity initiatives (DBI) and logit regressions to explain biodiversity impact assessment (BIA). We find that board gender diversity is positively associated with the DBI and BIA of a firm, and that the GRI framework and the EU biodiversity strategy positively moderate this relationship. Moreover, the GRI framework and the EU strategic plan show positive relationship with the DBI, rather than BIA. Altogether, our evidence suggests that corporate boards with a higher proportion of female directors are more sensitive to the concerns of institutional pressures and respond to those concerns by increasing corporate biodiversity disclosures. Overall, we find that firms tend to comply with the GRI framework and the EU 2020 strategy by undertaking symbolic biodiversity disclosures, rather than providing a comprehensive disclosure of their impacts on biodiversity.
0890-8389
Haque, Faizul
8153d83c-427a-4f73-860d-dd7e9460533d
Jones, Michael John
a6e8f562-145c-4990-b17b-ad0b29b4efd1
Haque, Faizul
8153d83c-427a-4f73-860d-dd7e9460533d
Jones, Michael John
a6e8f562-145c-4990-b17b-ad0b29b4efd1

Haque, Faizul and Jones, Michael John (2020) European firms’ corporate biodiversity disclosures and board gender diversity from 2002 to 2016. British Accounting Review, 52 (2), [100893]. (doi:10.1016/j.bar.2020.100893).

Record type: Article

Abstract

We examine how board gender diversity is associated with biodiversity disclosures of a firm, and whether the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and the EU biodiversity strategy reinforce this relationship. Using institutional theory and resource dependency theory, our sample comprises 4013 firm-year observations from European corporations covering data from 2002 to 2016. We use panel regressions with country, time and industry dummy variables to analyse the disclosure of biodiversity initiatives (DBI) and logit regressions to explain biodiversity impact assessment (BIA). We find that board gender diversity is positively associated with the DBI and BIA of a firm, and that the GRI framework and the EU biodiversity strategy positively moderate this relationship. Moreover, the GRI framework and the EU strategic plan show positive relationship with the DBI, rather than BIA. Altogether, our evidence suggests that corporate boards with a higher proportion of female directors are more sensitive to the concerns of institutional pressures and respond to those concerns by increasing corporate biodiversity disclosures. Overall, we find that firms tend to comply with the GRI framework and the EU 2020 strategy by undertaking symbolic biodiversity disclosures, rather than providing a comprehensive disclosure of their impacts on biodiversity.

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More information

Accepted/In Press date: 22 January 2020
e-pub ahead of print date: 24 January 2020
Published date: 1 March 2020

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 446852
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/446852
ISSN: 0890-8389
PURE UUID: aa401602-78f6-43c3-b212-092ea185caa9
ORCID for Faizul Haque: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0003-1556-3466

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 24 Feb 2021 17:31
Last modified: 17 Mar 2024 04:06

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Contributors

Author: Faizul Haque ORCID iD
Author: Michael John Jones

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