The influence of environmental management accounting practices on environmental performance in small-medium manufacturing in Malaysia

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of environmental management accounting (EMA) practices on environmental performance in the small-medium sized (SME) manufacturing sector. The empirical data was collected through structured questionnaires that were distributed to the managers. The study results reveal that physical EMA has the highest mean score compared to monetary EMA, however, unfortunately the EMA practice is not at an encouraging level in Malaysia. The regression results indicate that both types of EMA practices (monetary and physical) have a positive and significant effect on environmental performance. Thus, this study demonstrates the importance of EMA in enhancing environmental performance. The study results are valuable to policy makers, managers of manufacturing SMEs and other sectors to appreciate EMA practices. The study findings contribute to a growing body of literature on EMA within the Asian context, particularly, Malaysia. Finally, this study shed lights on the extent to which EMA tools has been used amongst manufacturing SMEs and provides a good foundation and framework for future studies.