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This paper explores how the disclosure quality, measured by the abnormal tone of environmental and social report, may determine the environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) performance of the firm. This study also investigates the impact of the moderator “board of directors” to explore the extent to which a well-balanced board of directors may affect this association within an impression management strategy.

This work uses a sample of 616 firm-year observations using a sample of French firms indexed on SBF120 index from 2010 to 2017. To test the developed hypotheses, the GLS regression is applied and to control for endogeneity issue and sample selection bias, the authors used, respectively, the two stage least square (2SLS) procedure and the Heckman model.

Findings suggest that a well-balanced board of directors moderates the relationship between the ESG performance and the disclosure quality. The positive effect of abnormal tone management on ESG is weakened by the presence of a good structure of the board, attenuating impression management initiatives.

The research provides evidence of the impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting quality, in particular disclosure tone management, on the level of ESG performance in the French context. As the board of directors may have a major impact on weakening impression management strategies in particular tone management practices, in order to improve CSR report quality, the authors recommend French companies to ensure a well-balanced board of directors.

This study helps investors to comprehensively evaluate the information disclosed on CSR reports. It unveils that a strong board composition induces better quality of CSR report and brings better ESG performance. Thus, the study results point to the importance of a well-balanced board of directors and the regulation of the narrative disclosure of CSR information.

This study aims to investigate corporate social responsibility (CSR) as an impression management strategy. It focuses on CSR associated with, both, disclosure tone management (TM) and earnings management (EM) practices to influence stakeholders’ perceptions.

Based on a sample of French listed companies (SBF 120) over an eight-year period, this study empirically investigated a total of 616 firm-year observations. This study firstly investigates the impact of EM and disclosure TM practices on CSR. Then, this study examines their joint effect to explore to which extent CSR is abused for impression management inducement. To address potential endogeneity issue that may be caused by reverse causality between CSR and EM, this study used the two-stage least square.

Multivariate analyses indicate that CSR is positively and significantly influenced by EM, but negatively correlated to disclosure TM. However, results highlight the absence of a significant joint effect of both discretionary practices

Because this study deals only with French companies, results are applicable only to large French firms and should be interpreted with caution. Therefore, future research may need to examine another context.

As CSR may be used for impression management incentives, all actors interested in socially responsible issues have to bring an initiative to prevent the deviation of CSR from moral and ethical standards.

This study sheds light on the impression management strategies used in CSR reporting, so users may have to read between lines. All stakeholders should be more cautious about the reliability of financial and non-financial information and the disclosure tone manipulation practices that may arise in narrative reports.

This research contributes to the debate around CSR from an impression management perspective. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of the first to associate CSR with, both, disclosure TM and EM in a regulated context.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate to what extent corporate social responsibility (CSR) is used as a symbolic strategy of greenwashing. Analyses focus on the relationship between CSR and disclosure tone management practice in sustainable reports derived from social impression management incentives.

This study is based on a sample of French listed firms (SBF 120) over a seven-year period (2010–2016), i.e. 539 firm-year observations.

Multivariate analysis indicates a significant relationship between CSR and disclosure tone management. The obtained results show that firms that are less concerned with tone management in sustainable reporting process consider more socially responsible issues. Findings support the socially substantive initiatives and the transparency perspective of CSR.

The negative association between CSR and tone management highlights the firm’s transparency. However, there could be other discretionary practices which may determine impression management strategies. Thus, future research may consider other discretionary behavior associated with CSR to mislead users.

All actors (government, green-association, investors, etc.) interested in CSR and greenwashing issues have to bring initiatives to reinforce the monitoring and reporting procedures.

This study investigates the association between CSR and disclosure tone management for the French context since the specificity of its regulatory framework of CSR disclosure. Thus, corporate narrative reporting users may be required to consider impression management practices (i.e. tone management) and read between the lines.