217 Copyright © 2014, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. Chapter 13 DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-4999-6.ch013 Environmental Disclosures and Impression Management ABSTRACT A signifcant stream of social and environmental accounting research investigates the relationship between a corporation’s self-reported disclosures of its own social responsibility and environmental activities and third-party evaluations of that corporation’s actual social responsibility and environmental perfor- mance. Generally, researchers have utilized one of two theories to motivate and test this relationship. One theory—signaling or voluntary disclosure theory—argues that corporations with superior corpo- rate social responsibility or environmental performance use disclosure to signal to interested parties a level of performance that poorer corporate performers cannot disclose. A second theory—legitimacy or impression management theory—argues that corporations use disclosures to manage impressions, often masking their actual social responsibility and environmental performance. In this chapter, the authors seek to comment on how DICTION has been and can be utilized to advance this stream of social and environmental accounting research. INTRODUCTION Corporations prepare and disseminate numerous types of narrative disclosures. These disclosures include, for example, press releases, earnings an- nouncements, narratives within corporate annual reports, and stand-alone corporate publications. Although some narrative disclosures are mandated by regulatory agencies such as the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, many corporate narrative disclosures are produced vol- untarily by the corporation. Corporate voluntary disclosures can, therefore, address a wide variety of topics that management believes to be relevant to one or more stakeholder groups. Charles H. Cho ESSEC Business School, France Den M. Patten Illinois State University, USA Robin W. Roberts University of Central Florida, USA