Does assurance on CSR reporting enhance environmental reputation? An examination in the U.S. context

Credibility of sustainability reports: The contribution of audit committees

“…In developing sustainability strategies companies need to choose from a range of alternatives and allocate resources, such as human capital and reputation, to different types of sustainability initiatives to develop competitive advantages (Arena, Azzone, & Mapelli, ; Yadav, Han, & Rho, ). As companies become cognizant of the reputational and financial risk associated with sustainability issues (Birkey, Michelon, Patten, & Sankara, ; Darnall, Seol, & Sarkis, ; De, Naiker, & Van, ; GRI, ; KPMG, ; Moroney, Windsor, & Aw, ; Simnett, Nugent, & Huggins, b; Simnett, Vanstraelen, & Chua, a) they are making oversight of sustainability practices and reporting a key priority and widening the remit of those charged with corporate governance to address stakeholder expectations. To alleviate concerns and add credibility to sustainability reports, companies may voluntarily adopt sustainability reporting assurance (hereafter sustainability reporting assurance [SRA]).…”

“…Cross‐country studies tend to cover a sample period and include years during which sustainability reporting is at an evolutionary stage of development (e.g., Clarkson, Li, Pinnuck, & Richardson, a; Clarkson, Li, Richardson, & Tsang, b; Green & Taylor, ; Perego & Kolk, ; Simnett et al, 2009a). Institutional differences, however, can affect sustainability reporting (Birkey et al, ; Young & Marais, ). For instance, the litigious nature of the US environment means US companies are likely to be exposed to greater litigation risk and uncertainties about the benefits of SRA.…”

CEO Compensation and Sustainability Reporting Assurance: Evidence from the UK

“…A balanced data set is a set that contains all elements observed in all time frames, whereas unbalanced data are a set of data where in certain years the data cat-9 The Asset4 database which has already been used in the literature (see for e.g. Eccles et al 2014;Cheng et al 2014;Ioannou and Serafeim 2012;Birkey et al 2016;Haque 2017), provides objective, relevant and systematic environmental, social and governance (ESG) information based on key performance indicators. Research analysts of ASSET4 collect data from sources including stock exchange filings, annual financial and sustainability reports, nongovernmental organizations' websites and various news sources (Eccles et al 2014).…”

Corporate social responsibility and assurance disclosure practice: an investigation of the top 100 companies in Bangladesh

“…However, the existent indication on its value is diverse based on different situations (O'Dwyer, 2011;Martinov-Bennie, 2012;Edgley et al, 2015;Birkey et al, 2016). Moreover, some studies found out that companies operating in countries that are more stakeholder-oriented and have a weaker governance articles are more likely to adopt sustainability assurance statement (De Villiers and van Staden, 2010; Darus et al, 2014;Jones and Solomon, 2010).…”

“…Often this is due to the questionable independence of assurors, and therefore stakeholders tend to place more trust on assurance provided by consultants who are not financial auditors (Wong and Millington, 2014;Birkey et al, 2016).…”