Public disclosure of corporate environmental performance: Impact on consumer behavior and corporate pollution reduction in Korea

The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate the effectiveness of Public Information Disclosure (PID) as a pollution control tool. The main research question is, “Whether disclosure of corporate environmental performance information (CEPI) sufficiently affects consumer behavior to influence market share and consequently corporate interest in pollution reduction?” In order to predict consumers' purchase behavior change, this study tested hypotheses about three dependent variables: (1) attitude toward corporation, (2) corporate credibility and (3) purchase intention toward products of the corresponding corporations. This study also performed tests about hypotheses concerning three moderator variables: (1) environmental attitude toward pollution, (2) familiarity with corporation, and (3) information credibility.;Three hundred six Korean undergraduate students participated in the experiment designed as a two-group random assignment combined with pre and post-tests, between May and early June 2001. Four currently existing Korean corporations and their four new unnamed products with positive and negative CEPI were presented as stimuli in the classroom setting of the post-test. “Within Subject Analysis” with Confidence Interval, Inference Probability, and Significance Test was employed as a major statistical tool.;Data revealed that CEPI disclosure changes (1) consumers' attitudes toward specific corporations, (2) perceptions of credibility of the corporation and (3) purchase intention toward products of the corresponding corporations in the positive direction for non-polluting corporations and in the negative directions for polluting corporations. This study also found (4) that positive correlation between consumer's environmental attitude about pollution and effect of CEPI and (5) a strong positive correlation between information credibility and effect of CEPI exists.;Based on these findings, this study predicts (1) that CEPI disclosure influences consumers to change their purchase behavior in the negative direction for polluting corporations and in the positive direction for non-polluting corporations, (2) CEPI disclosure can generate market pressures or incentives for corporations to reduce pollution voluntarily, (3) that PID can be an effective approach for pollution control, (4) that consumers' environmental attitudes and CEPI credibility are critical elements that influence the degree of the effectiveness of PID, and (5) PID could be workable for even less known brands or corporations. (Abstract shortened by UMI.).