Difference in Degrees : CEO Characteristics and Firm Environmental Disclosure

We contribute to the literature on firms' response to institutional pressures and environmental information disclosure. We hypothesize that CEO characteristics will influence firms' likelihood of acquiescing to pressures to disclose environmental information, and that acquiescence, in turn, will affect subsequent environmental performance. We test our hypotheses by examining firms' responses to the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) and find that firms led by newly appointed CEOs and CEOs with MBA degrees are more likely to respond to the CDP while those led by lawyers are less likely to respond. We also find the interaction of acquiescence and CEO characteristics to be associated with subsequent improvement in greenhouse gas emissions. Our results have implications for research on strategic response to institutional pressures and corporate environmental performance