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This chapter empirically examines factors associated with the environmental disclosures made by Canadian manufacturing firms in their 1993 annual reports. Existing studies suggest that corporate environmental information is value-relevant and that firms may disclose such information in a strategic fashion. This study examines the extent to which voluntary disclosure theory can explain corporate disclosure of general and financial environmental information. We find that firms with more news media coverage of their environmental exposure, higher pollution propensity, and more political exposure are more likely to disclose general environmental information. These findings are consistent with the predictions of the voluntary disclosure literature. We also find that disclosure of financial information about corporate environmental impact is influenced less by voluntary disclosure factors than is general disclosure.

This chapter examines the sensitivity of executive incentive compensation to market-adjusted returns and changes in earnings for high-tech (HT) firms vis-à-vis firms (NHT) in other industries. Consistent with the hypotheses, this chapter uncovers the following evidence: First, the sensitivity of executive bonus compensation to market-adjusted returns is weaker and more symmetric for HT firms than for NHT firms (a control group), which implies that the problem of ex post settling up, documented in Leone et al. (2006), may be far less serious in HT firms than in NHT firms. Second, the sensitivity of executive incentive compensation to earnings changes is generally more symmetric for HT firms than for NHT firms, which is consistent with the view that HT firms engage in more conservative financial reporting than NHT firms. Third, the sensitivity of executive equity-based compensation to market-adjusted returns is significantly negative for HT firms compared to NHT firms when bad earnings news is announced. The results imply that HT firms, with a strong motive to attract and retain their highly talented executives, judiciously use both short-term and long-term incentive compensation schemes by compensating for a reduction of short-term incentive pay with an increase in long-term incentive pay. The issue of executive compensation has been a longstanding one in the United States and Canada, and the issue of executive compensation-performance sensitivity for HT firms is also relevant in this era of the information technology (IT) revolution, especially when prior research has shown that HT firms differ from NHT firms in their market-valuation process.

This investigation/report/reflection was motivated largely by the occasion of the first Centre for Social and Environmental Accounting Research (CSEAR) “Summer School” in North America.¹ But its roots reach down as well to other recent reflection/investigation pieces, in particular, Mathews (1997), Gray (2002, 2006), and Deegan and Soltys (2007). The last of these authors note (p. 82) that CSEAR Summer Schools were initiated in Australasia, at least partly as a means to spur interest and activity in social and environmental accounting (SEA) research. So, too, was the first North American CSEAR Summer School.² We believe, therefore, that it is worthwhile to attempt in some way to identify where SEA currently stands as a field of interest within the broader academic accounting domain in Canada and the United States.³ As well, however, we believe this is a meaningful time for integrating our views on the future of our chosen academic sub-discipline with those of Gray (2002), Deegan and Soltys (2007), and others. Thus, as the title suggests, we seek to identify (1) who the SEA researchers in North America are; (2) the degree to which North American–based accounting research journals publish SEA-related research; and (3) where we, the SEA sub-discipline within North America, might be headed. We begin with the who.