Critical success factors of environmental management accounting practices: findings from Malaysian manufacturing industry

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to identify the critical success factors of environmental management accounting practices in Malaysian manufacturing industry. Design/methodology/approach A pilot study was carried out on a sample of 60 manufacturing companies from Malaysian manufacturing industry. A survey instrument including 25 measurement items was designed to identify the level of environmental management accounting practices implementation in the Malaysian manufacturing industry. Descriptive statistical analysis and reliability analysis were used to analyze the data with SPSS software. Findings Findings indicate that environmental safety is one of the critical success factors that play the key role in ensuring the safety awareness at workplace. Companies in the manufacturing industries need to obtain critical success factors of environmental management accounting practices implementation to enhance performance, particularly for Malaysian manufacturing industry. Research limitations/implications The limitation of this study has been the difficult to find the literature on environmental management accounting practices in the Malaysian manufacturing industry. Another limitation is this study only conducted to 60 manufacturing companies from Malaysian manufacturing industry. Practical implications For practical implications, the development of instruments in this study may be valuable tools to evaluate Environmental Management Accounting Practices (EMAP) in Malaysian manufacturing industry. This study also provides important guidelines for Malaysian manufacturing industry to implement EMAP. This research finding would provide new insights for the critical success factors of EMAP to improve performance in Malaysian manufacturing industry. Originality/value This study makes a new contribution to environmental management accounting practices in Malaysian manufacturing industry. This study also provides important information for decision makers involved in environmental management accounting practices implementation and also provides useful reference for future researchers in this research area.