Bounded Rationality and Greenwashing: An Information‐Architecture Signalling Framework for Verification Frictions and the Disclosure–Performance Gap

ABSTRACT Green claims pervade corporate communications, yet their informational value varies because stakeholders process them under bounded rationality—scarce attention and costly verification. This paper develops a conceptual signalling framework in which three parameters—signal diagnosticity (D), verification frictions (V) and available attention (A)—alter the relative payoffs of four firm strategies: substantive disclosure, vague or exaggerated disclosure, reliance on third‐party certification and silence. The framework specifies when this architecture sustains pooling, letting low‐performing firms mimic high quality and widening the disclosure–performance gap (DPD) and when it supports separation. A two‐axis taxonomy and pre‐validation coding dimensions—claim precision, eco‐label strictness, traceability and greenhushing risk—are distinguished from the gap they document and from substantiation risk, the strength of available evidence; together they generate five testable propositions. Greenwashing and greenhushing emerge as distinct strategic responses, and the analysis identifies governance levers—standardised labels, independent auditing and low‐friction verification—to narrow the gap across jurisdictions.