Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2012

Publication Title

Emerald Management Reviews

Volume

109

Issue

2

First Page

227

Keywords

Corporate Environmental Performance, Corporate Websites, Green-highlighting, Green-washing

Last Page

239

Abstract

We examine over 100 top performing Canadian firms in visibly polluting industries as we seek to answer four research questions: What specific environmental issues are firms addressing? How do these issues differ between industries? Are both symbolic and substantive actions financially beneficial? Does green-washing, measured as the difference between symbolic and substantive action, and/or green-highlighting, measured as the combined effect of symbolic and substantive actions, pay? We find that substantive actions of environmental issues (green walk) neither harm nor benefit firms financially, but symbolic actions (green talk) are negatively related to financial performance. We also find that green-washing (discrepancy between green talk and green walk) has a negative effect on financial performance and green-highlighting (concentrated efforts of the talk and walk) has no effect on financial performance. In this article, we provide explanations of our findings and put forth future research directions.

DOI

41AT321

Comments

This article is a post print of an article published in Emerald Management Reviews. The definitive version can be found here. Copyright (2012) Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

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