AbstractsBusiness Management & Administration

The objective of this thesis is to investigate how China’s country-specific context influences climate-change reporting by Chinese companies. Specifically, the thesis theoretically and empirically examines factors that influence climate-change reporting in China’s changing political and economic institutional environment. The thesis addresses how the political ideology of the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC) has driven the changing institutions in the field of climate-change reporting, and the impact on Chinese company characteristics and reporting practice. The thesis includes Chinese literature in evaluating the adaptability of theories originating in the West to the Chinese context. It identifies institutional theory as the preferred basis for developing an extended model to explain the homogeneity and heterogeneity of climate-change reporting by Chinese companies. The model developed, which incorporates multiple levels of institutional analysis, was then tested empirically. From 100 leading listed Chinese companies, 471 reports (Annual Reports and Corporate Sustainability Reports) were examined across three key reporting years between 2006 and 2010, using content analysis. Multivariate regression and logit analyses were then used for further analysis.