شیوه های افشای محیط زیست فراگیر و عملکرد شرکت: نقش مدیریت زنجیره تامین سبز Inclusive environmental disclosure practices and firm performance: The role of green supply chain management

1. Introduction Environmental disclosure is growing in importance due to the increased demand for environmental performance information by multiple stakeholders (Dawkins and Fraas, 2011; Al-Tuwaijri et al., 2004). Environmental disclosures practices concern information sharing with a variety of stakeholders about environmental pollution and natural resource consumption performance (Plumlee et al., 2015). The effectiveness of such practices to improve a firm’s financial and environmental performance has been widely debated in the accounting literature and more recently in the supply chain management literature. The literature on environmental disclosure practices has proposed that they offer a way to legitimize a firms’ reputation and image and thus useful to improve its financial performance (Qiu et al., 2016). Environmental disclosure practices have also been associated to socially responsible behaviors to improve a firm’s sustainable performance (Gelb and Strawser, 2001). More recently, their effectiveness in leading to environmental and/or financial outcomes has been proposed to dependent on the type of stakeholders addressed that might advocate for different outcomes (Khan et al., 2016), for example economic partners focusing on financial performance or stakeholders representatives focusing on specific needs. Further, it is well accepted that potential advantages can be achieved where there is firms’ credibility with specific stakeholders, meaning that management actions align with their expectations (Freeman, 1984). In this sense, given the growing interest of stakeholders on how a firm is managing its supply chain, green supply chain management (GSCM) practices have been proposed to answer stakeholder needs and improve environmental performance. GSCM practices are often cited in environmental disclosure practices to show that actual actions are taken by the organization to improve environmental performance (Tate et al., 2010; Marshall et al., 2016). The initial focus of green practices on internal operations activities (i.e. production) to reduce pollution and material consumption (Klassen and Whybark, 1999) has broadened into a stronger external orientation including the adoption of green practices upstream and downstream in the supply chain (Pagell and Wu, 2009). Contributing to the debate about the effectiveness of environmental disclosure practices and sustainable supply chain management practices, this paper seeks to make a two-fold contribution. First, we examine the impact of environmental disclosure practices on financial and environmental performance by testing two environmental disclosure models related to the level of inclusivity, meaning the degree to which a variety of diverse stakeholder groups are addressed in disclosure practices. In this way, we empirically respond to the recent calls for investigating how addressing different sets of stakeholders may influence the effectiveness of environmental disclosure practices and performance achievement (Gualandris et al., 2015; Khan et al., 2016). Second, in this study we provide empirical evidence about the effectiveness of different environmental disclosure practices in presence of the actual organizational practices implemented by the firm, such as GSCM. Thus, we empirically test the role of GSCM practices as a way to align with stakeholder needs and enhance environmental disclosure effectiveness. In the remainder of the paper, we will review the current research on inclusive environmental disclosure and GSCM practices, develop hypotheses about the proposed relationships, and present and discuss the results of hypothesis testing.