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The DOI matches its Crossref record; 54 of the 54 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Environmental disclosures in the annual report: Extending the applicability and predictive power of legitimacy theory

O’Donovan, Gary·2002·Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal

Abstract

Much of the extant research into why companies disclose environmental information in the annual report indicates that legitimacy theory is one of the more probable explanations for the increase in environmental disclosures since the early 1980s. Legitimacy theory is based on the idea that in order to continue operating successfully, corporations must act within the bounds of what society identifies as socially acceptable behaviour. The purpose of the practical research undertaken and reported in this paper is to extend the applicability and predictive power of legitimacy theory by investigating to what extent annual report disclosures are interrelated to: attempts to gain, maintain and repair legitimacy; and the choice of specific legitimation tactics. The quasi‐experimental method adopted utilised semi‐structured interviews with senior personnel from three large Australian public companies. The findings indicated support for legitimacy theory as an explanatory factor for environmental disclosures. Moreover, findings about the likelihood of specific micro‐legitimation tactics being used in response to legitimacy threatening environmental issues/events, and dependent on whether the purpose of the response is designed to gain, maintain or repair legitimacy, are reported.

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Research works printed but not linked: 14

  1. Anderson, R.H. and Epstein, M. (1995), “The usefulness of annual reports”, Australian Accountant, April, pp. 25‐8.
  2. Bansal, P. (1995), “Why do firms go green? The case of organisational legitimacy”, D. Phil thesis, Oxford University, Oxford.
  3. Coopers & Lybrand Consultants (1997), “Environmental reporting”, On Environmental Reporting, Vol. 2 No. 1, September.
  4. Dyball, M.C. (1998), “Corporate annual reports as promotional tools: the case of Australian National Industries Limited”, Asian Review of Accounting, Vol. 6 No. 2, pp. 25‐53. · doi:10.1108/eb060696
  5. Frost, G.R. and Wilmshurst, T.D. (1998), “Evidence of environmental accounting in Australian companies”, Asian Review of Accounting, Vol. 6 No. 2, pp. 163‐80. · doi:10.1108/eb060702
  6. Gibson, K. and O’Donovan, G. (2000), “Environmental disclosures in Australia: a longitudinal study”, paper presented at the 6th Interdisciplinary Environmental Association Conference, Montreal, 21‐24 July.
  7. O’Donovan, G. (1997), “The decision to include environmental information in the corporate annual report: some Australian case study evidence”, American Accounting Association, Southwest Region Meeting Conference Proceedings, New Orleans, LA, March, pp. 119‐126.
  8. O’Donovan, G. (1998), “Corporate strategy and environmental reporting: a multinational’s perspective”, in Hickey, K. and Kantarelis, D. (Eds), Our Natural Environment: Interdisciplinary Interactions, Assumption College, Worcester, MA, pp. 89‐104.
  9. O’Donovan, G. (2000), Legitimacy Theory as an Explanation for Environmental Disclosures, PhD thesis, Victoria University of Technology, Melbourne.
  10. Pava, M.L. and Krausz, J. (1997), “Criteria for evaluating the legitimacy of corporate social responsibility”, Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 16, pp. 337‐47. · doi:10.1023/a:1017920217290
  11. Sethi, S.P. (1978), “Advocacy advertising – the American experience”, California Management Review, Vol. 11, pp. 55‐67. · doi:10.2307/41165295
  12. Sutton, B. (Ed.) (1993), The Legitimate Corporation, Blackwell, Cambridge, MA.
  13. Wartick, S.L. and Mahon, J.F. (1994), “Toward a substantive definition of the corporate issue construct: a review and synthesis of the literature”, Business and Society, Vol. 33, pp. 293‐311. · doi:10.1177/000765039403300304
  14. Weil, S., Clark, M. and Wegner, T. (1996), “Measuring students perceptions of the design features of a computer‐aided learning program in introductory accounting”, paper presented at AAANZ Annual Conference, Christchurch, July.

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Metadata

Authors
O’Donovan, G.
Venue
Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal
Publisher
Emerald
Published
2002-08-01
Volume
15
Issue
3
Pages
344-371
ISSN
0951-3574 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W1905298264
Cited by
1,450
References
54
FWCI
55.52
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Licence
www.emerald.com/insight/site-policies (tdm)

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Environmental disclosures in the annual report: Extending the applicability and predictive power of legitimacy theory. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1108/09513570210435870
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O’Donovan, G. (2002). Environmental disclosures in the annual report: Extending the applicability and predictive power of legitimacy theory. Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal. https://doi.org/10.1108/09513570210435870

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Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).

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