Publications Database

Welcome to the new Schulich Peer-Reviewed Publication Database!

The database is currently in beta-testing and will be updated with more features as time goes on. In the meantime, stakeholders are free to explore our faculty’s numerous works. The left-hand panel affords the ability to search by the following:

  • Faculty Member’s Name;
  • Area of Expertise;
  • Whether the Publication is Open-Access (free for public download);
  • Journal Name; and
  • Date Range.

At present, the database covers publications from 2012 to 2020, but will extend further back in the future. In addition to listing publications, the database includes two types of impact metrics: Altmetrics and Plum. The database will be updated annually with most recent publications from our faculty.

If you have any questions or input, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

 

Search Results

Rivière-Giordano, G., Giordano-Spring, S. and Cho, C.H. (2018). "Does the Level of Assurance Statement on Environmental Disclosure Affect Investor Assessment? An Experimental Study", Sustainability Accounting, Management and Policy Journal, 9(3), 336-360.

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Keywords
Abstract The purpose of this study is to examine whether different levels of assurance statements of environmental disclosures affect investment choices in the French context where environmental assurance was voluntary until 2012 and became regulated and mandatory since then.,The authors conducted an experiment during the voluntary context – which represents the vast majority of countries – on a sample of 108 financial analysts.,Environmental disclosure has a positive impact on investment recommendations. More surprisingly, financial analysts are less likely to give recommendations in favor of a company that displays environmental disclosure with low-level assurance than for a company with no assurance statement at all.,When assurance is voluntary and there are at least two levels, this study results suggest that firms should avoid selecting the lowest level of assurance because it negatively affects investor decisions. From this perspective, firms should devote sufficient effort and resources to obtain at least Level 2 environmental disclosure assurance.,Given the recommendations made by financial analysts, the authors could expect that firms may prefer to engage in a higher level of assurance or to provide no assurance rather than minimize their financial efforts and resources to select a lower level of voluntary assurance regarding environmental disclosure.,This study has implications for the voluntary assurance practices of environmental disclosure and can provide support to regulators to promote higher standards in environmental assurance. It documents the relevance to increase the level of requested assurance for environmental disclosure.,To the best of the authors’ knowledge, very few studies have examined the additional effect of assurance on environmental disclosure in investors’ decisions. The experiment is conducted with financial analysts in the context of voluntary assurance.

Cho, C.H., Maurice, J., Nègre, E. and Verdier, M-A. (2016). "Is Environmental Disclosure Good for the Environment? A Meta-Analysis and Research Agenda", Korean Accounting Review, 41(3), 239-277.

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Keywords
Abstract This paper reviews the literature on the association between environmental disclosure and environmental performance. Results from previous studies are mixed. While some studies conducted in an economic perspective document a positive association between these two environmental dimensions, other studies obtain a negative association that they mainly explain using arguments drawn from socio-political theories. Given these conflicting results, we conduct a meta-analysis to provide an average direction and magnitude of the association between environmental disclosure and environmental performance. The meta-analysis reveals that there is no association between the environmental disclosure and the environmental performance of the 2,672 companies of our cumulated sample, and that this non-association remains constant over time despite the continuous reinforcement of environmental regulations. Based on these results, we discuss theoretical and methodological issues associated with prior literature that could explain this overall non-association and we suggest avenues for future research.

Chen, J.C., Cho, C.H. and Patten, D.M. (2014). "Initiating Disclosure of Environmental Liability Information: An Empirical Analysis of Firm Choice", Journal of Business Ethics, 125(4), 681-692.

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Keywords
Abstract This paper investigates potential motivations for late adopting U.S. companies to begin disclosing environmental liability amounts in their financial statements. Based on a review of 10-K reports filed from 1998 through 2012, inclusive, we identified 55 firms initiating environmental liability disclosure over the period, with all but three doing so by 2006. Focusing on the disclosers up through 2006, we argue that the companies may have used the disclosure as a tool of impression management to avoid potential stakeholder mis-estimation of previously undisclosed liability exposures. We first compute tests to identify firms that may have begun the disclosure due to (1) materiality and (2) concerns of having proprietary costs imposed upon them due to changes in their environmental media coverage and environmental performance, and we find very few cases where these explanations might hold. For the remaining companies, we compared their newly disclosed liability amount, on average, with the mean level of environmental liability being disclosed by other firms in the year prior to the sample companies’ initiation, and find that it is significantly smaller, thus supporting our impression management argument. Finally, we find that overall level of environmental liability amounts was consistently decreasing over the time frame examined, suggesting that earlier adoption would have made more sense. However, it may also explain why almost no new firms began disclosing after the mid-2000s.