IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/finlet/v90y2026ics1544612325025759.html

Silence is safer: ESG disclosure via social media

Author

Listed:
  • Li, Ying
  • Shen, Dian
  • Li, He

Abstract

This paper examines how firms strategically manage their ESG-related communication on WeChat in response to their actual ESG performance. We find that poor-ESG firms tend to remain silent on ESG issues on WeChat, especially when they face stronger regulatory enforcement and greater investor attention. This pattern is particularly evident for environmental and social dimensions of ESG. These WeChat articles also exhibit lower readability and fewer text-image elements. Moreover, strategic silence helps mitigate the negative impact of poor ESG performance on firm fundamentals and stock price volatility. Our findings provide empirical support for the “silence explanation” in the ESG literature.

Suggested Citation

  • Li, Ying & Shen, Dian & Li, He, 2026. "Silence is safer: ESG disclosure via social media," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:finlet:v:90:y:2026:i:c:s1544612325025759
    DOI: 10.1016/j.frl.2025.109326
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1544612325025759
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.frl.2025.109326?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

    for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:finlet:v:90:y:2026:i:c:s1544612325025759. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/frl .

    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.