Research On The Impact Of Senior Executives’ Hometown Connectedness On The Quality Of Corporate Environmental Information Disclosure

With the development of society and economy,the environmental problems in China are becoming more and more prominent.In order to improve the efficiency of government environmental management,the importance of environmental information disclosure is particularly significant.As the main body of economic activities,enterprises are also the main manufacturers of environmental protection problems.Therefore,the quality of environmental information disclosure is a topic worthy of study.As an important role of decision-making of environmental information disclosure,senior executives play a crucial role in the quality of disclosure.A lot of researches have been carried out in academia,but the researches are mainly aimed at the characteristics of the executive individuals.However,as a "social person",the socialized attribute of senior executives leads to the social relationship between executives is also very important.As one of the important social relations,the relationship is rooted in the local culture of China,and has a profound historical background.There are problems of management independence and communication effectiveness among executives from the same hometown and using the same dialect.Therefore,this thesis analyzes the impact of the hometown connectedness between the senior executives on the quality of environmental information disclosure from the perspective of relationship.At the same time,this thesis also analyzes the influence mechanism of the hometown connectedness between the senior executives on the quality of the environmental information disclosure from the internal and external environment.This thesis builds the theoretical framework of the relationship between executives and the disclosure of enterprise environmental information according to the relational contract theory,upper echelons theory,principal-agent theory and social identity theory.Through the selection of 2012-2017 China A-share listed companies for empirical research.This thesis selects four representative case companies: Meichen Ecological(300237),Dongshan Precision(002384),Yunnan Copper(000878)and Fangda Carbon(600516)to analyze the impact effect within a single case and the impact difference and mechanism across cases.This thesis uses the content analysis method to obtain environmental related information from listed companies,scores the specific ten items,and finally obtains the quality data of enterprise environmental information disclosure;through manual collection,database data and fellow townsman data matching,it obtains the senior executives’ hometown,dialect and other fellow townsman relationship data.The research conclusions are as follows:(1)In the decision-making of enterprise environmental information disclosure,the hometown connectedness of senior executives has a significant negative inhibitory effect on the quality of enterprise environmental information disclosure.(2)With the deepening of the relationship,the inhibition effect of the hometown connectedness is more obvious.(3)The terrain environment of the region where the company is located has a complementary moderating effect on the negative relationship between the hometown connectedness and the quality of environmental information disclosure,while the regional group atmosphere has an alternative moderating effect on the negative effect between the hometown connectedness and the quality of environmental information disclosure.(4)The negative impact of hometown connectedness on the quality of corporate environmental information disclosure is more reflected in private enterprises,and the effect of dialect consistency is more significant in private enterprises.(5)At the low level of marketization,the inhibition effect of senior executives’ hometown connectedness is more significant.(6)In the male executive mix,the inhibition effect of fellow townships is more obvious,and the influence effect of dialect consistency on the quality of corporate environmental information disclosure is more significant.Based on the above conclusions,this thesis puts forward relevant suggestions from the perspective of enterprises and government:(1)Enterprises should enhance the awareness of environmental information disclosure,actively disclose environmental information,and undertake the social responsibility of environmental governance.(2)Enterprises should optimize the structure of the top management team reasonably,and consider the soft factors such as the relationship characteristics of the top management when establishing the top management team.(3)Enterprises should take a comprehensive and reasonable view of the hometown connectedness between senior executives,and enhance the positive impact of relationship culture on improving communication efficiency.(4)The government should give full play to the supervision function,increase the restriction of laws and regulations,and speed up the establishment of enterprise environmental information disclosure system and evaluation system.(5)The relevant government regulatory departments should make further provisions on the disclosure standards of soft information of enterprise executives,and deeply consider the influence of social relations such as hometown connectedness on listed companies.