Cited by 693Corporate Social Responsibility ReportingEnvironmental Sustainability in BusinessCorporate Identity and Reputation

Greenwashing Revisited: In Search of a Typology and Accusation‐Based Definition Incorporating Legitimacy Strategies

Seele, Peter, Gatti, Lucia·2017·Business Strategy and the Environment

Abstract

Is greenwashing a concept describing companies using misleading communication or is it co‐constructed in the eye of the beholder? By discussing the literature, we find that existing definitions of greenwashing overemphasize the strategic intention to mislead and do not incorporate unjust allegations. Then, by combining signaling theory with legitimacy theory, we frame the communication process of the greenwashing accusation and the emergence of a negative narrative caused by the accusation and its effect on legitimacy. Hence, in this paper we argue that greenwashing epistemologically is constituted in the eye of the beholder , depending on an external accusation. Following this view, the greenwashing accusation is understood as a distortion factor altering the signal reliability of green messages. Based on our conceptual analysis, we provide a conceptual framework introducing a new typology of case‐based greenwashing ( greenwashing , false greenwashing , potential greenwashing and no greenwashing ) and the effects of these types on corporate legitimacy. Finally, we propose a revised definition of greenwashing as co‐creation of an external accusation toward an organization with regard to presenting a misleading green message. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1002/bse.1912

Cites

85 of 85 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Claims the paper makes

This paper’s full text isn’t openly available, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Seele, P., & Gatti, L.
Affiliations
Università della Svizzera italiana (CH)
Corresponding author
Seele, Peter
Venue
Business Strategy and the Environment
Publisher
Wiley
Published
2015-11-24
Volume
26
Issue
2
Pages
239-252
ISSN
  • 0964-4733 (ISSN-L)
  • 1099-0836
OpenAlex
W2178068968
Cited by
693
References
85
Citations by year
2026: 140 · 2025: 137 · 2024: 132 · 2023: 87 · 2022: 63 · 2021: 45 · 2020: 30 · 2019: 33 · 2018: 10 · 2017: 8 · 2016: 7 · 2015: 1
FWCI
24.21
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Locations
  • Business Strategy and the Environment (publishedVersion)
  • RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
  • Iris (University of Trento) (submittedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Strategy and Management › Corporate Social Responsibility Reporting
  • Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Marketing › Environmental Sustainability in Business
  • Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Strategy and Management › Corporate Identity and Reputation
Keywords
greenwashing, corporate legitimacy, signaling theory, legitimacy theory

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review