Date of Award

2-1-2023

Thesis Type

masters

Document Type

Thesis (Restricted Access)

Divisions

FacultyofBusinessandAccountancy

Department

Department of Accounting

Institution

Universiti Malaya

Abstract

An environmental audit is a voluntary procedure for voluntarily managing materials and energy and improving environmental performance. As a newly developed auditing method in China, environmental audit is a part of corporate social responsibility and is one of the ways to achieve sustainable development. At present, the development of environmental audits in China is not yet mature, and there is also a lack of relevant research about the managerial perceptions on stakeholders’ influence and the companies’ willingness of implementing environmental audits. Therefore, this dissertation will propose a framework for managerial perceptions, the role of the board of directors and environmental audits from the perspective of the Stakeholder-Agency theory. This study aims to investigate the effect between managers' perceptions on stakeholders’ influence and environmental audits in Chinese manufacturing companies. Therefore, by distributing questionnaires to managers who work in Chinese manufacturing companies, the study explores the importance of managers' perceptions on stakeholders’ influence in the managers’ decisions that whether to implement environmental audits. At the same time, this study also explores the moderating role of the stakeholders’ proportion in the board of directors between pushing the managers' perceptions and the environmental audits’ decision by managers in manufacturing companies. Finally, The investigation found that managerial perceptions on each stakeholder’s influence, except the public stakeholder’s influence, are positively associated with environmental audits. And the stakeholders in the board of directors have a moderating effect on the relationship between the managerial perceptions of each stakeholder’s influence and environmental audits, except for the public stakeholder’s influence. This provides managers with a new perception of pushing the environmental audits, which is based on stakeholders’ influence and the stakeholders in the board of directors, while utilizing sufficient resources of them to produce more positive results on sustainability.

Note

Dissertation (M.A.) – Faculty of Business and Economics, Universiti Malaya, 2023.

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