Corporate political activity and greenwashing: Can CPA clarify which firm communications on social & environmental events are genuine?

Abstract

Research into decoupling seems to be enjoying a resurgence of late (Kern, Laguecir, & Leca, 2017). The idea of decoupling dates back to the seminal paper by Meyer and Rowan (1977) which pointed out that organizations frequently develop a gap between their formal policies and their actual practices. Recent research has focused on identifying a continuum with organizations blatantly disregarding institutionalized rules on one end-known as policy-practice decoupling-and organizations sincerely trying to comply with the rules on the other end-known as means-end decoupling (Bromley & Powell, 2012). As Christensen, Morsing, and Thyssen (2013) pointed out that seemingly hypocritical behavior may stem from two sources: such behavior may be intentionally misleading, called "hypocrisy as duplicity," or aspirational, in which companies seek to behave responsibly but are unsuccessful in achieving the goals they set out for themselves. At its most extreme is greenwashing in which organizations deliberately attempt to avoid the consequences of their actions (Schoeneborn & Trittin, 2013;Siano, Vollero, Conte, & Amabile, 2017).The reason that organizations will engage in such efforts, according to Meyer and Rowan (1977), is to address isomorphic pressures in the environment. In effect, in response to institutional pressures, firms have two choices: either to comply with these societal requirements or to avoid compliance by engaging in greenwashing or policy-practice decoupling. We theorize that there might be more to greenwashing than simply feigning acquiescence to societal demands.Perhaps, organizations engaging in such efforts might seek to reduce the external pressures compelling them to behave responsibly on social and environmental issues. One way to do so is through lobbying for changes in government policy (Baumgartner, Berry, Hojnacki,

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