Enabling factors of carbon accounting disclosure quality: Designing an analytical framework

Abstract

This study theoretically proposes an analytical framework to study the determinants of Carbon Disclosure (CD) quality, aiming at bridging the perspectives of different theoretical approaches trying to deductively explain causes of firms' disclosure efforts and the quality of disclosure itself. The paper constructs a theoretical model to compare the reporting strategies of B-Corps (BCs) versus traditional companies (non-BCs). By integrating Legitimacy, Image, and Signaling Theories, the study hypothesizes that while non-BCs could tend towards disclosure driven by symbolic compliance or impression management (implying greenwashing risks), BCs might leverage CD as a substantive signal of their dual purpose. The paper's original contribution lies in identifying a theoretically informed conceptual framework to study the enabling factors of CD in different organizations, which leverage different legitimacy stakeholders' expectations and respond with different effort and costly signals to them.