The relationship between environmental performance and environmental disclosure: A meta-analysis

This research conceptually and empirically summarizes multiple aspects of the association between corporate environmental performance and corporate environmental reporting in previous literature, addressing the questions of (a) whether disclosure is a reliable indicator of performance and (b) whether variable measurement characteristics influence empirical outcomes. Systematic literature review and meta-analytic techniques are employed to generate objective and valid summarized effects. The research covers a total of 251 effect sizes within 62 primary studies, representing a total of 56,387 observations. This study discovers a weak and negative association between environmental performance and environmental reporting, supporting the sociopolitical perspective that poor environmental performers have higher motivations to increase their level of disclosure than strong performers. At the same time, this research confirms the heterogeneity of previous studies in the field and verifies the effects of measurement methods on empirical outcomes.