Coming clean and cleaning up
Subtitle: does voluntary self-reporting indicate effective self-policing?
By: Michael W. Toffel, Jodi L. Short
Contributors: Short, Jodi L.; Harvard Business School
Edition: 3rd rev.
Series: Working paper / Harvard Business School -- 08-098; Working paper (Harvard Business School) -- 08-098.
Publisher: Harvard Business School
Published: 2008
Place of publication: Boston
Language: eng
Number of pages: 57
Subjects: Social responsibility of business; Environmental aspects; Environmental law; Compliance costs; Environmental policy
Description: Administrative agencies are increasingly establishing voluntary self-reporting programs both as an investigative tool and to encourage regulated firms to commit to policing themselves. We investigate whether self-reporting can reliably indicate effective self-policing efforts that might provide opportunities for enforcement efficiencies. We find that regulators used self-reports of legal violations as a heuristic for identifying firms that are effectively policing their own operations, shifting enforcement resources away from voluntary disclosers. We also find that firms that voluntarily disclosed regulatory violations and committed to self-policing improved their regulatory compliance and environmental performance, suggesting that the enforcement relief they received was warranted. Collectively, our results suggest that self-reporting can be a useful tool for reliably identifying and leveraging the voluntary self-policing efforts of regulated companies.
Notes: "May 2008, revised July 2009, March 2010, October 2010"--Publisher's web site.

Previously published as: Coming clean and cleaning up--is voluntary disclosure a signal of effective self-policing?

Includes bibliographical references.