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This study aims to apply signaling theory to examine whether corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure can deliver effective signals to stakeholders to increase a firm’s competitive advantage in China. Whether ownership patterns or environmental sensitivity causes a significant difference in the relationship between a firm’s CSR disclosure and competitive advantage is also examined.

Data analysis is based on a regression model. Content analysis is performed to convert qualitative CSR information of Chinese firms into quantitative data, while intellectual capital (IC) is used as a proxy variable for competitive advantage.

The difference in competitive advantage impairment between environmentally sensitive industries (ESIs) and non-environmentally sensitive industries (NESIs) is significant. Further comparisons on the relationship between overall CSR disclosure and competitive advantage among state-owned enterprises, privately owned enterprises, ESIs and NESIs suggest that the relationship is negative.

The study extends research of strategic CSR to signaling theory and competitive advantage. In particular, a research using IC as a proxy for competitive advantage is rare. It also contributes to the literature on competitive advantage and strategic CSR by examining the effects of both CSR disclosure and IC.

This paper provides evidence related to stakeholders’ reaction to managers’ various CSR strategies in China. The contribution of this study is that it confirms that different CSR initiatives have different effects on the competitiveness of enterprises in China.

Taking on a corporate political activity (CPA) perspective, the purpose of this paper is to investigate how CPA affects environmental sustainability disclosure among firms in China and whether the disclosure level varies across ownership structures and environmental sensitivity statuses.

The sample comprises 652 corporate social responsibility reports released by firms in China during 2008-2010. Data are coded through a content analysis procedure before being analyzed using regression analysis.

The authors find a significant and positive association between CPA and environmental sustainability disclosure. However, the effect of CPA on environmental sustainability disclosure is significantly negative among firms in the environmentally sensitive industries (ESIs) and privately owned enterprises (POEs). More specifically, a firm’s environmental disclosure level is lower when the proportion of board members with a significant status, such as party chief of the Communist Party, is higher among firms in ESIs and POEs. This implies that firms with guanxi (i.e. Chinese-specific CPA) are more likely to be free from trouble.

This empirical study offers important evidence on the fulfillment of environmental sustainability policies and the effectiveness of regulatory controls that China has used in the development toward a low-carbon economy.

This study aims to examine how gender diversity within the CPA partnership team impacts the firm’s profit performance.

The authors use the two-stage least squares method in analyzing the gender–diversity–performance relationship using the pooled sample obtained from the National Survey Reports on Taiwan CPA firms between 1992 and 2008.

The authors observe a non-linear relationship between gender diversity at the partner level and profit performance. The relationship curves vary according to firm size. After identifying the point of inflexion for these curves, the findings indicate that the average gender diversity is below the inflexion point for large CPA firms, but exceeds the inflexion point for medium size firms.

According to the critical mass theory, increasing gender diversity within the partnership team can have a positive influence on the value of the firm. Hence, the authors argue that for large CPA firms in Taiwan, the proportion of female partners leaves room for improvement. If the average number of female partners could be increased by 0.95 persons, the critical mass would be attained.

The study provides the empirical evidence that increasing a CPA firm’s proportion of female partners positively impacts the firm’s profit performance. The findings serve a practical value as reference source for any further studies.

This paper aims to examines whether Chinese firms’ signals of green governance, including environmental management, green innovation, and greenhouse gas (GHG) and pollution emission, vary significantly with their ownership structure and aim of being environmentally sensitive.

From corporate social responsibility (CSR)-China website and CNINFO, a total of 781 CSR reports released during 2008-2010 were collected. The collected data were coded and analyzed using content analysis.

In overall disclosure of environmental protection information (TotalEP), no significant difference existed between state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and privately owned enterprises (POEs). Chinese environmentally sensitive industries (ESIs) have a tendency to disclose significantly more information about their actions of environmental protection than their counterparts. Moreover, SOEs and ESIs scored higher than their counterparts on energy saving and carbon reduction and development of circular economy. A steady increase was also observed in the disclosure ratio for CO₂ emission. During 2008-2010, SOEs and ESIs were relatively more committed to the disclosure of SO₂ emission as compared to other emission items.

Managers should disclose signals of green governance actively to avoid adverse selection caused by information asymmetry which further lower their financing cost.

There is still a lack of evidence as to whether Chinese firms are implementing actions to slow down climate change. This paper endeavours to provide an insight into Chinese firms’ compliance with the green governance requirements of the Eleventh Five-Year Plan. The study hopes to fill the current gap in understanding the environmental behaviours of Chinese firms under pressure to alleviate climate change.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between level of environmental disclosure and establishment of a legitimacy image of operation among Japanese firms after implementation of the Kyoto Protocol.

This study uses a sample consisting of 208 firms listed in the Japan Nikkei Stock Index 500 and adopts three-stage least-squares (3SLS) to explore the relationship between environmental news exposure, environmental disclosure in corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports, and environmental legitimacy.

Results indicate that firms from environmentally-sensitive industries can significantly improve their perceived legitimacy by releasing CSR reports; firms with better prior environmental legitimacy will be more active in environmental disclosure and establish better environmental legitimacy in the next period; firms with better carbon reduction performance tend to have higher levels of environmental disclosure. In terms of carbon reduction performance, Japanese firms in the sample may reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 49.636 tons by allocating one million yens (approximately 9,670.3 euros or 12,328 US dollars) to environmental expenditure.

The top three items of environmental disclosure in most Japanese firms ' CSR reports are environmental management, development of alternative energies, and ecological information. These results reveal environmental behavior of sample firms in Japan to mitigate global warming. The managers should understand that the impact of substantive actions for environmental management on legitimacy is greater.

Environmental management has become an important component of business management beliefs for most firms, and Japanese firms that belong to environmentally-sensitive industries are even more active in using CSR reports as an effective tool to establish their legitimacy image.

The purpose of this study is to explore whether a connection exists between business operational efficiency and environmental responsibility.

This research adopts the DEA method through a four‐step analysis to examine inter‐industry differences in terms of operational efficiency with environmental consideration. The sample comprises 32 Japanese firms from three different industries listed in the Tokyo Stock Exchange between 2001 and 2006.

The results indicate a positive correlation with statistical significance in terms of a firm's environmental conservation cost, net income and economic benefit of environmental conservation for the three Japanese industries. In addition, the relationship among a firm's environmental conservation cost, CO₂ emission reduction and total CO₂ emission are positively correlated but without significance. In particular, business operational efficiency integrating social responsibility for anti‐global warming initiatives ( = total CO₂ emission level) could be applied to distinguish differences in terms of operational efficiency among industries.

Japanese firms adopt a voluntary environmental disclosure; therefore this study is constrained by the availability of long‐term data.

This study enables environmentally conscious investors and fund managers to distinguish the operationally efficient industries when taking environmental performance into account.

The study is a novel attempt to analyze inter‐industry differences in terms of operational efficiency when considering environmental conservation through the DEA method using a four‐step analysis.