The influence of top managers on environmental information disclosure: The moderating effect of company’s environmental performance

Abstract

Abundant extant literature emphasizes the impact of board members attributes’ influence on environmental information disclosure. Considering the voluntary nature of environmental information disclosure, executives have strong managerial discretion when they make such decisions, so this article focuses on top managers’ influence on environmental information disclosure. We hypothesize that top managers’ educational background and age will affect companies’ environmental decision. The hypotheses are verified with the data from Chinese listed manufacturing companies. As the results show, a Master of Business Administration (MBA) educational background and average age of top managers positively affect environmental information disclosure, while the impact of legal educational background is negative. The company’s environmental performance plays a U-shaped moderating effect on the relationship between MBA educational background and environmental information disclosure.