On A New Impression Management Technique

Lorenzo Gelmini, Francesco Bavagnoli and Maurizio Comoli

Materiality matrices are a relatively new tool largely developed by professional bodies to identify the economic, social and environmental issues that matter to stakeholders. Through a preliminary empirical study, this paper aims to examine whether firms use these matrices as a new impression management technique to project a more favorable image of their social and environmental performance. Our findings indicate conspicuous incidences of impression management from a high materiality convergence level to issue selection bias.

Field of Research: Sustainability Accounting, Impression Management

DOI : http://dx.doi.org/10.21102/graf.2016.03.71.11