The Perceived Attributes of EMA and its Relation to the Adoption of the Practice: Malaysian Evidence

Abstract

Environmental Management Accounting (EMA) is an extension to the traditional management accounting that helps the managers to identify environmental costs and realize the impact of their operation towards the environment. The adoption of this practice is critical in order to address environmental issues. However, as most of the practice of EMA is underutilized and diverse, further promotion is needed if it is to help the business to move towards sustainability. Surprisingly, even those firms which are regarded as being more environmentally-sensitive are not necessarily to use environmental management accounting. This has led to the literature gap pertaining factors that influence firms to apply environmental accounting. Therefore, this research is interested in extending the focus of EMA adoption in environmentally sensitive industries and understands the factors influencing them. Based on Diffusion of Innovation (DOI) perspective, this study attempts to look at how accountants perceived EMA and how this may affect the adoption of the system. By utilising a survey, questionnaires were mailed to the accountants of public listed companies in Malaysia. Six attributes namely the cost, relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, compatibility and trialabilty are tested in this paper to determine the motivations of EMA adoption. The findings of the study are expected to explain the conditions that facilitate the implementation of the practice and help to provide ways to increase the adoption rate among companies.