Malaysian corporate environmental reporting attitudes: a stakeholder perspective

Malaysia’s quest to become a developed country by the year 2020 has been well disseminated since the launch of Vision 2020 in 1991. Recognising the need to maintain a well balanced development, the Malaysian government has intensified the incorporation of environmental stewardship since the Eighth Plan period, 2001-2005. Having gone past the mid-point of its journey towards the 2020 target, Malaysia’s focus is now on 'fostering closer cooperation between stakeholders in addressing environmental concerns' (EPU 2006 p. 453) as it enter the second fifteen-year phase commencing with the Ninth Plan period, 2006-2010. It is in this regard that this research aims to use stakeholder theory to identify the determinants of voluntary annual report environmental disclosures (AREDs) and to investigate the motives for providing such disclosures in order to get a glimpse as to what has transpired in the corporate arena before the Ninth Plan period. The findings in Phase 1 suggest that the most significant determinant for providing AREDs by Malaysian publicly listed companies is the level of concern about environmental issues (a measure of strategic posture). The government’s power (GP) to sanction companies particularly in the environmentally-sensitive industry (one of the three measures of stakeholder power) is also found to have a significant relationship with both the quality and quantity of AREDs. Phase 2 uncovers the motivations behind the provision of AREDs which are related to the central premise of stakeholder theory