Corporate environmental performance, legal origin, and investor protection. (5th January 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Chan, Kam C.; Hussein, Mohamed E.; Seow, Gim S.; Tam, Kinsun
• Is Part Of: Interdisciplinary environmental review. Volume 20:Number 3/4(2020)
• Page Start: 234
• Page End: 254
• Publication Date: 2021-01-05
• Subjects: corporate environmental performance -- CEP -- legal origin -- investor rights -- law enforcement; Environmental sciences -- Periodicals; Environmental management -- Periodicals; Sustainability -- Periodicals; 333.705
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1521-0227

Abstract

Global environmental disasters caused by corporate malfeasance have raised the public's consciousness for improvements in corporate environmental performance (CEP). There are many unknowns in the determinants of CEP. Adopting a legal origin framework, this study examines how CEP of a sample of large international firms relates to legal origin and investor protection. Consistent with expectations, we find CEP to positively relate to the civil law origin as well as investor rights and law enforcement quality. This study contributes to the literature by updating the measure of investor rights as applied to CEP studies, considering the enforcement dimension of investor protection, introducing more comprehensive proxies of CEP and corporate governance, and clarifying the influence of investor protection on CEP.