Impression management in ESG reporting: A visual salience approach to benchmarking ESG commitment shortfalls

This study examines how firms manage stakeholder perceptions through strategic information presentation in ESG reporting. We develop a model to introduce a presentation-to-substance content ratio as a measure of impression management and derive a firm’s optimal disclosure strategy. The model predicts that (1) firms whose stated ESG commitment falls short of stakeholder expectations are more likely to engage in impression management; and (2) the negative association between stated ESG commitment and impression management is stronger among firms that already exhibit high levels of impression management behavior. We use visual salience, derived from computer vision techniques, to quantify presentational content and empirically test the model’s predictions using ESG reports from S&P 500 firms. Both OLS and quantile regression analyses produce findings that support the model's predictions and remain robust across alternative salience measures. This study contributes to the sustainability literature by introducing a benchmark-based indicator that differentiates between high and low levels of impression management, and by uncovering firm-level heterogeneity in the relationship between impression management strategies and stated ESG commitment. Our study offers an empirically grounded reference point to support more informed assessments of ESG disclosures.