IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/accfor/v38y2014i4p241-257.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

CEO statements in sustainability reports: Substantive information or background noise?

Author

Listed:
  • Barkemeyer, Ralf
  • Comyns, Breeda
  • Figge, Frank
  • Napolitano, Giulio

Abstract

This paper examines the question of whether corporate sustainability reports can serve as accurate and fair representations of corporate sustainability performance. It presents the results of a sentiment analysis of CEO statements in corporate sustainability reports and corporate financial reports between 2001 and 2010. Making an analogy with corporate financial reporting it is expected that if corporate sustainability reports accurately reflect sustainability performance, then this should be reflected in the rhetoric used. The analysis shows that the rhetoric in the CEO statements of sustainability reports is indicative of impression management rather than accountability, despite increasing standardization of sustainability reporting.

Suggested Citation

  • Barkemeyer, Ralf & Comyns, Breeda & Figge, Frank & Napolitano, Giulio, 2014. "CEO statements in sustainability reports: Substantive information or background noise?," Accounting forum, Elsevier, vol. 38(4), pages 241-257.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:accfor:v:38:y:2014:i:4:p:241-257
    DOI: 10.1016/j.accfor.2014.07.002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0155998214000313
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.accfor.2014.07.002?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Cho, Charles H. & Roberts, Robin W. & Patten, Dennis M., 2010. "The language of US corporate environmental disclosure," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 431-443, May.
    2. Aishah Sheikh Abu Bakar & Rashid Ameer, 2011. "Readability of Corporate Social Responsibility communication in Malaysia," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 18(1), pages 50-60, January.
    3. Blake E. Ashforth & Barrie W. Gibbs, 1990. "The Double-Edge of Organizational Legitimation," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 1(2), pages 177-194, May.
    4. Rob Gray, 2006. "Does sustainability reporting improve corporate behaviour?: Wrong question? Right time?," Accounting and Business Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(S1), pages 65-88.
    5. Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky, 2013. "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 6, pages 99-127, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    6. Robert G. Eccles & Michael P. Krzus & Jean Rogers & George Serafeim, 2012. "The Need for Sector-Specific Materiality and Sustainability Reporting Standards," Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, Morgan Stanley, vol. 24(2), pages 65-71, June.
    7. J. Emil Morhardt & Sarah Baird & Kelly Freeman, 2002. "Scoring corporate environmental and sustainability reports using GRI 2000, ISO 14031 and other criteria," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 9(4), pages 215-233, December.
    8. Helen Tregidga & Markus Milne & Glen Lehman, 2012. "Analyzing the quality, meaning and accountability of organizational reporting and communication," Accounting Forum, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(3), pages 150-153, September.
    9. Tversky, Amos & Kahneman, Daniel, 1992. "Advances in Prospect Theory: Cumulative Representation of Uncertainty," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 5(4), pages 297-323, October.
    10. Aerts, Walter, 2005. "Picking up the pieces: impression management in the retrospective attributional framing of accounting outcomes," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 30(6), pages 493-517, August.
    11. Epstein, Marc & Flamholtz, Eric & McDonough, John J., 1976. "Corporate social accounting in the United States of America: State of the art and future prospects," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 23-42, January.
    12. Denis Cormier & Michel Magnan & Barbara Van Velthoven, 2005. "Environmental disclosure quality in large German companies: Economic incentives, public pressures or institutional conditions?," European Accounting Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(1), pages 3-39.
    13. Craig Deegan & Michaela Rankin & Peter Voght, 2000. "Firms' Disclosure Reactions to Major Social Incidents: Australian Evidence," Accounting Forum, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(1), pages 101-130, March.
    14. Andrew Gouldson & Jan Bebbington, 2007. "Corporations and the Governance of Environmental Risk," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 25(1), pages 4-20, February.
    15. Comyns, Breeda & Figge, Frank & Hahn, Tobias & Barkemeyer, Ralf, 2013. "Sustainability reporting: The role of “Search”, “Experience” and “Credence” information," Accounting forum, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 231-243.
    16. Hannele Mäkelä & Matias Laine, 2011. "A CEO with many messages: Comparing the ideological representations provided by different corporate reports," Accounting Forum, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(4), pages 217-231, December.
    17. Peter M. Clarkson & Michael B. Overell & Larelle Chapple, 2011. "Environmental Reporting and its Relation to Corporate Environmental Performance," Abacus, Accounting Foundation, University of Sydney, vol. 47(1), pages 27-60, March.
    18. Magalie Marais, 2012. "CEO rhetorical strategies for corporate social responsibility (CSR)," Post-Print hal-02523052, HAL.
    19. Ali Fekrat, M. & Inclan, Carla & Petroni, David, 1996. "Corporate environmental disclosures: Competitive disclosure hypothesis using 1991 annual report data," The International Journal of Accounting, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 175-195.
    20. Muhammad Islam & Craig Deegan, 2010. "Media pressures and corporate disclosure of social responsibility performance information: A study of two global clothing and sports retail companies," Accounting and Business Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(2), pages 131-148.
    21. Tregidga, Helen & Milne, Markus & Lehman, Glen, 2012. "Analyzing the quality, meaning and accountability of organizational reporting and communication: Directions for future research," Accounting forum, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 223-230.
    22. Ans Kolk, 2008. "Sustainability, accountability and corporate governance: exploring multinationals' reporting practices," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 17(1), pages 1-15, January.
    23. Neu, D. & Warsame, H. & Pedwell, K., 1998. "Managing public impressions: environmental disclosures in annual reports," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 265-282, April.
    24. Mark Clatworthy & Michael Jones, 2003. "Financial reporting of good news and bad news: evidence from accounting narratives," Accounting and Business Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(3), pages 171-185.
    25. Edward H. Bowman, 1984. "Content Analysis of Annual Reports for Corporate Strategy and Risk," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 14(1), pages 61-71, February.
    26. Li, Feng, 2008. "Annual report readability, current earnings, and earnings persistence," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(2-3), pages 221-247, August.
    27. Mäkelä, Hannele & Laine, Matias, 2011. "A CEO with many messages: Comparing the ideological representations provided by different corporate reports," Accounting forum, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 217-231.
    28. Uma R. Karmarkar & Zakary L. Tormala, 2010. "Believe Me, I Have No Idea What I'm Talking About: The Effects of Source Certainty on Consumer Involvement and Persuasion," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 36(6), pages 1033-1049, April.
    29. Mark A. Clatworthy & Michael John Jones, 2006. "Differential patterns of textual characteristics and company performance in the chairman's statement," Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Emerald Group Publishing, vol. 19(4), pages 493-511, July.
    30. Cho, Charles H. & Patten, Dennis M., 2007. "The role of environmental disclosures as tools of legitimacy: A research note," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 32(7-8), pages 639-647.
    31. Doris M. Merkl-Davies & Niamh Brennan, 2007. "Discretionary disclosure strategies in corporate narratives : incremental information or impression management?," Open Access publications 10197/2907, Research Repository, University College Dublin.
    32. Dror Etzion & Fabrizio Ferraro, 2010. "The Role of Analogy in the Institutionalization of Sustainability Reporting," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 21(5), pages 1092-1107, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Khaldoon Albitar & Tony Abdoush & Khaled Hussainey, 2023. "Do corporate governance mechanisms and ESG disclosure drive CSR narrative tones?," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(4), pages 3876-3890, October.
    2. Anne‐Kathrin Weber, 2020. "Corporate Role Conceptions in Global Forest Governance," Global Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 11(5), pages 611-627, November.
    3. Yongkyu Choi & Keun Tae Cho, 2021. "Analysis of Environmental Management Characteristics Using Network Analysis of CEO Communication in the Automotive Industry," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(21), pages 1-23, October.
    4. Bartikowski, Boris & Berens, Guido, 2021. "Attribute framing in CSR communication: Doing good and spreading the word – But how?," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 700-708.
    5. Yuriko Nakao & Katsuhiko Kokubu & Kimitaka Nishitani, 2019. "Do Sustainability Reports Strategically Employ Rhetorical Tone? : An evidence from Japan," Discussion Papers 2019-01, Kobe University, Graduate School of Business Administration.
    6. Giorgio Mion & Cristian R. Loza Adaui, 2019. "Mandatory Nonfinancial Disclosure and Its Consequences on the Sustainability Reporting Quality of Italian and German Companies," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(17), pages 1-28, August.
    7. Dongwook Kim & Sungbum Kim, 2017. "Sustainable Supply Chain Based on News Articles and Sustainability Reports: Text Mining with Leximancer and DICTION," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(6), pages 1-44, June.
    8. Laura Bini & Marco Bellucci & Francesco Giunta, 2016. "Put Your Money where Your Mouth is: The Difference between Real Commitment to Sustainability and Mere Rhetoric," FINANCIAL REPORTING, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2016(2), pages 5-31.
    9. Schniederjans, Dara G. & Khalajhedayati, Mehrnaz, 2023. "Corporate Responsibility Communication and Score Trends: A Buyer and Supplier Perspective," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 257(C).
    10. Cristian R. Loza Adaui, 2020. "Sustainability Reporting Quality of Peruvian Listed Companies and the Impact of Regulatory Requirements of Sustainability Disclosures," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(3), pages 1-22, February.
    11. Mao-Chang Wang, 2017. "The Relationship between Firm Characteristics and the Disclosure of Sustainability Reporting," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(4), pages 1-14, April.
    12. Cornelia Beck & Geoffrey Frost & Stewart Jones, 2018. "CSR disclosure and financial performance revisited: A cross-country analysis," Australian Journal of Management, Australian School of Business, vol. 43(4), pages 517-537, November.
    13. Saverio Bozzolan & Giovanna Michelon & Marco Mattei & Andrea Giornetti, 2019. "Signing the letter to shareholders: Does the Signatory?s role relate to impression management?," FINANCIAL REPORTING, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2019(1), pages 37-82.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Yuriko Nakao & Katsuhiko Kokubu & Kimitaka Nishitani, 2019. "Do Sustainability Reports Strategically Employ Rhetorical Tone? : An evidence from Japan," Discussion Papers 2019-01, Kobe University, Graduate School of Business Administration.
    2. Beattie, Vivien, 2014. "Accounting narratives and the narrative turn in accounting research: Issues, theory, methodology, methods and a research framework," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 111-134.
    3. Mohamed Chelli & Sylvain Durocher & Anne Fortin, 2018. "Normativity in Environmental Reporting: A Comparison of Three Regimes," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 149(2), pages 285-311, May.
    4. Renato Camodeca & Alex Almici & Umberto Sagliaschi, 2018. "Sustainability Disclosure in Integrated Reporting: Does It Matter to Investors? A Cheap Talk Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(12), pages 1-34, November.
    5. Berkin, Anil & Aerts, Walter & Van Caneghem, Tom, 2023. "Feasibility analysis of machine learning for performance-related attributional statements," International Journal of Accounting Information Systems, Elsevier, vol. 48(C).
    6. Niamh Brennan & Encarna Guillamon-Saorin & Aileen Pierce, 2009. "Impression management : developing and illustrating a scheme of analysis for narrative disclosures – a methodological note," Open Access publications 10197/2905, Research Repository, University College Dublin.
    7. Jieun Chung & Charles H. Cho, 2018. "Current Trends within Social and Environmental Accounting Research: A Literature Review," Accounting Perspectives, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 17(2), pages 207-239, June.
    8. Saverio Bozzolan & Giovanna Michelon & Marco Mattei & Andrea Giornetti, 2019. "Signing the letter to shareholders: Does the Signatory?s role relate to impression management?," FINANCIAL REPORTING, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2019(1), pages 37-82.
    9. Michelon, Giovanna & Pilonato, Silvia & Ricceri, Federica, 2015. "CSR reporting practices and the quality of disclosure: An empirical analysis," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 59-78.
    10. Dongwook Kim & Sungbum Kim, 2017. "Sustainable Supply Chain Based on News Articles and Sustainability Reports: Text Mining with Leximancer and DICTION," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(6), pages 1-44, June.
    11. YAN, Beibei & AERTS, Walter, 2014. "Rhetorical impression management in corporate narratives and institutional environment," Working Papers 2014014, University of Antwerp, Faculty of Business and Economics.
    12. Laura Bini & Marco Bellucci & Francesco Giunta, 2016. "Put Your Money where Your Mouth is: The Difference between Real Commitment to Sustainability and Mere Rhetoric," FINANCIAL REPORTING, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2016(2), pages 5-31.
    13. Michelle Rodrigue & Michel Magnan & Charles Cho, 2013. "Is Environmental Governance Substantive or Symbolic? An Empirical Investigation," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 114(1), pages 107-129, April.
    14. Lorenzo Patelli & Matteo Pedrini, 2014. "Is the Optimism in CEO’s Letters to Shareholders Sincere? Impression Management Versus Communicative Action During the Economic Crisis," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 124(1), pages 19-34, September.
    15. Matthias S. Fifka, 2013. "Corporate Responsibility Reporting and its Determinants in Comparative Perspective – a Review of the Empirical Literature and a Meta‐analysis," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(1), pages 1-35, January.
    16. Rüdiger Hahn & Regina Lülfs, 2014. "Legitimizing Negative Aspects in GRI-Oriented Sustainability Reporting: A Qualitative Analysis of Corporate Disclosure Strategies," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 123(3), pages 401-420, September.
    17. Olivier Boiral, 2016. "Accounting for the Unaccountable: Biodiversity Reporting and Impression Management," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 135(4), pages 751-768, June.
    18. Beck, A. Cornelia & Campbell, David & Shrives, Philip J., 2010. "Content analysis in environmental reporting research: Enrichment and rehearsal of the method in a British–German context," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(3), pages 207-222.
    19. Walid Ben‐Amar & Merridee Bujaki & Bruce McConomy & Philip McIlkenny, 2022. "Disclosure transparency and impression management: A textual analysis of board gender diversity disclosures in Canada," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 29(5), pages 1247-1265, September.
    20. Ingrid E. Fisher & Margaret R. Garnsey & Mark E. Hughes, 2016. "Natural Language Processing in Accounting, Auditing and Finance: A Synthesis of the Literature with a Roadmap for Future Research," Intelligent Systems in Accounting, Finance and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(3), pages 157-214, July.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:accfor:v:38:y:2014:i:4:p:241-257. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/accounting-forum .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.