An institutional perspective on the environmental reporting practices of the top 100 firms in Malaysia: An empirical research

Companies in Malaysia have been disclosing environmental information in their annual reports for many years, even before the government made it mandatory for companies to disclose such information. There has been many researches that try to understand the motivation behind environmental reporting, using different theoretical perspectives. The aim of this research is to provide an understanding of the motivation behind environmental reporting in the Malaysian context from an institutional perspective. Content analysis of the largest 100 listed companies were carried out to identify the current state of reporting, industry variations in reporting and to determine whether regulative, normative and mimetic pressures can be used to explain reporting motive. Results showed that government dependence, award winning, firm size and proximity are determinant factors in explaining environmental reporting. Further some evidence of convergence in environmental reporting was also found