ABSTRACT This study examines how foreign ownership shapes firms' environmental engagement by treating disclosure as part of a multi‐stage governance process rather than an isolated reporting choice. Drawing on agency and institutional theories, we develop a three‐stage framework—policy adoption, indicator‐based performance measurement, and disclosure—and test it using panel survey data on more than 3000 firms in Chile. We find that foreign ownership is associated with systematic differences in how firms formalize and operationalize environmental engagement. We further show that these ownership‐related differences are conditioned by product‐market competition and export intensity, consistent with market discipline and international scrutiny partially substituting for ownership‐based monitoring and legitimacy pressures. By unpacking engagement into sequential stages and identifying boundary conditions, the study helps reconcile mixed prior evidence and clarifies where ownership is most consequential and where differences diminish.
Ramirez et al. (Mon,) studied this question.