Public environmental reporting in China

Public disclosure of environmental performance is of increasing interest to China's State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) due to the gravity of its pollution problems. The State regulatory regime has been perceived by Chinese managers to be themost influential, most complex, and...

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Main Authors: Rowe, Anna, Guthrie, J., Paton, M.
Other Authors: Professor James Guthrie
Format: Conference Paper
Published: SMOG 2009
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/43437
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author Rowe, Anna
Guthrie, J.
Paton, M.
author2 Professor James Guthrie
author_facet Professor James Guthrie
Rowe, Anna
Guthrie, J.
Paton, M.
author_sort Rowe, Anna
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description Public disclosure of environmental performance is of increasing interest to China's State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) due to the gravity of its pollution problems. The State regulatory regime has been perceived by Chinese managers to be themost influential, most complex, and least predictable on organisational environmental performance. Undoubtedly, whilst publicly available corporate environmental reporting (CER) is voluntary, it would appear that environmental disclosures by business enterprises are being undertaken for the government, and not necessarily for the shareholders and other stakeholders.This paper explores the normative assumptions underpinning CER in China focusing on Shanghai utilising a constructivist ontology and an interpretivist epistemology. The data indicate conceptual themes that reverberate well with "cultural/cognitive institutions" and Chinese cultural norms (informal institutional rules). This paper addresses the literature"gap" in the empirical study of CER in an emerging nation such as China. The study is limited to an investigation of CER in Shanghai but the implications of this exploratoryresearch is that those seeking to impose compliance to international CER standards and norms, may need to embrace institutional rules that go through a cultural lens.
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spelling curtin-20.500.11937-434372017-01-30T15:07:27Z Public environmental reporting in China Rowe, Anna Guthrie, J. Paton, M. Professor James Guthrie Informal - Institutional Cultural Norms Institutional Theory Grounded Theory Corporate Environmental Reporting China Public disclosure of environmental performance is of increasing interest to China's State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) due to the gravity of its pollution problems. The State regulatory regime has been perceived by Chinese managers to be themost influential, most complex, and least predictable on organisational environmental performance. Undoubtedly, whilst publicly available corporate environmental reporting (CER) is voluntary, it would appear that environmental disclosures by business enterprises are being undertaken for the government, and not necessarily for the shareholders and other stakeholders.This paper explores the normative assumptions underpinning CER in China focusing on Shanghai utilising a constructivist ontology and an interpretivist epistemology. The data indicate conceptual themes that reverberate well with "cultural/cognitive institutions" and Chinese cultural norms (informal institutional rules). This paper addresses the literature"gap" in the empirical study of CER in an emerging nation such as China. The study is limited to an investigation of CER in Shanghai but the implications of this exploratoryresearch is that those seeking to impose compliance to international CER standards and norms, may need to embrace institutional rules that go through a cultural lens. 2009 Conference Paper http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/43437 SMOG fulltext
spellingShingle Informal - Institutional Cultural Norms
Institutional Theory
Grounded Theory
Corporate Environmental Reporting
China
Rowe, Anna
Guthrie, J.
Paton, M.
Public environmental reporting in China
title Public environmental reporting in China
title_full Public environmental reporting in China
title_fullStr Public environmental reporting in China
title_full_unstemmed Public environmental reporting in China
title_short Public environmental reporting in China
title_sort public environmental reporting in china
topic Informal - Institutional Cultural Norms
Institutional Theory
Grounded Theory
Corporate Environmental Reporting
China
url http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/43437