Floodlight or Spotlight? Public Attention and the Selective Disclosure of Environmental Information

Abstract

AbstractTo meet growing demands for information on their environmental impacts, firms may engage in selective disclosure by strategically reporting only a subset of relevant data. In this article, we draw out and problematize an antecedent to selective disclosure, public attention. Prior studies suggest that public attention brings scrutiny that reduces selective disclosure by increasing the risk of getting caught (the floodlight thesis). The impression management literature, however, suggests that public attention offers the possibility of broad‐based image benefits from the disclosure of strategically filtered data (the spotlight thesis). Panel regressions with Trucost data from 2008–19 provide overall support for the spotlight thesis as well as a negative moderator, environmental damage. Results also point to an underlying mechanism: Companies receiving public attention disclose a larger number of environmental metrics, but not ones that, altogether, represent more environmental damage, a tactic that we call strategic fluffing.