Examination of environmental reporting motives: meta-synthesis application

Authors
raheleh nazarian 1
akram taftiyan 2
forough heyrani 3
1 Ph.D. student in Accounting, Yazd branch, Islamic Azad University, Yazd, Iran (Rnazaryan@iauk.ac.ir)
2 Assistant Professor of Accounting, Yazd branch, Islamic Azad University, Yazd, Iran (Corresponding Author)
3 Assistant Professor of Accounting, Yazd branch, Islamic Azad University, Yazd, Iran.(Heyrani@iauyazd.ac.ir)
10.52547/aapc.6.11.341
Abstract
Disclosing environmental information by the companies is considered a way of transferring information related to environmental operation and it's concerning affect on beneficiary parties, which recognizing the motives and their impacting factors is considered a vital affair because of the significant role of this type of reporting in proper and wise decision making. Thus, taking into account the significance of environmental reporting and the necessity of integration, the findings of researches that address the factors that impact this type of reporting and in order to systematically analyze mentioned factors and motives, meta-synthesis qualitative approach which consists of Sandlowski and Barso's seven levels, was employed. Therefore the purpose of this inquiry is to recognize factors impacting environmental reporting with the aim of invigoration and improvement of this type of reporting as one of the imperative tools of countering to beneficiary parties. For this purpose a number of 39 related articles for Farsi sources through the span of 1380 to 1400 S.H and for the English sources through 2000 to 2020 A.D were put to analysis in the meta-synthesis section. As for the purpose, this study is operational. By employing the Shannon entropy method, the determination of the recognized factors impact coefficient was addressed on the basis of content analysis approach. The findings suggest that environmental reporting motives are classified in 8 categories and 69 components. Among the recognized components, items such as company size, standards, rules and regulations and also the existence of an audit committee and pressures of competition are rather more significant components than others. This study provides a new viewpoint in environmental reporting motives analysis to the subscribers of the inquiry results and improves beneficiary parties' awareness regarding the recognition of motives and impacting factors on such reporting, by a plenary analysis of factors impacting environmental reporting.
Keywords
Non-financial information disclosure
Qualitative meta-synthesis approach
Environmental Reporting
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Value and Behavioral Accounting
Volume 6, Issue 11
Summer 2021
Pages 341-382