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Cite this Article: Hasan Yousef El- Mousawi and Abdulrazzak Charbaji.
Attitude of Lebanese Managers towards ISO 14001- Environmental
Management System and ISO 14051 - Material Flow Cost Accounting.
International Journal of Management, 7(2), 2016, pp. 224235.
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1. INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this piece of research is to investigate the attitude of Lebanese
managers towards the list of ISO series standards such as ISO 14001- Environmental
Management System and ISO 14051 - Material Flow Cost Accounting. It is worth
mentioning that ISO 14001- Environmental Management System (EMS) provides a
voluntary approach to environmental regulation as compared to ISO 14051 - material
flow cost accounting (MFCA) which provide a general framework for material flow
cost accounting (MFCA). Under MFCA, the flows and stocks of materials within an
organization are traced and quantified in physical units (e.g. mass, volume) and the
costs associated with those material flows are also evaluated(ISO 14051:2011). Sara
Parkin OBE and her associates argue that An internal environmental account makes
explicit current levels of expenditure on environmental activities and captures any
associated financial benefits (such as revenues generated, costs saved and taxes
avoided). It is basically an aggregated cost-benefit statement at the organisational
level. Expenditures include both a depreciation allowance for capital expenditures (eg,
equipment for the treatment of waste) and environmentally related operating
expenditures (eg, staff costs, running costs, materials and services, environmental
taxes and licences). Associated financial benefits may include additional revenue
generated (eg, revenues from recycled waste), cost savings (eg, reduced waste
disposal costs), regulatory costs avoided (eg, savings in landfill tax) and grants and
subsidies received (eg, grants under the Energy Saving Trusts Clean Up Programme
(OBE et al., 2003). If truth should be told, the growing interest in corporate
governance, corporate social responsibility and environmental issues have given rise
to the role that accounting should play in tackling social and environmental issues.
Mohammad argues that introducing an environmental accounting course in
universities should help to eliminate corruption from our society. He notes that the
expert level on this issue think that the environment accounting education is very
important and may play critical role to the sustainable environment and development
issues for our generations. We need to introduce this course in the various universities
at home and abroad (Mohammad, 2012). Zulkifli notes that despite viewing
positively the roles of SEA education, a relatively large percentage of the accounting
educators do not appear to agree on the following roles: Criticize nature of society,
apply accounting in non-financial areas, highlight the limitations of neo-classical
economy, fill a gap in accounting education and teach social and political materials.
In addition, the majority of the accounting educators seem to agree that SEA
education can develop improved ways of accounting (Zulkifli, 2011). Gray states
that social accounting is the preparation and publication of an account about an
organisation's social, environmental, employee, community, customer and other
stakeholder interactions and activities and, where, possible, the consequences of those
interactions and activities. The social account may contain financial information but is
more likely to be a combination of quantified non-financial information and
descriptive, non-quantified information. The social account may serve a number of
purposes but discharge of the organisation's accountability to its stakeholders must be
the clearly dominant of those reasons and the basis upon which the social account is
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Source: The ISO Survey of Management System Standard Certifications (19992014).The full text is available at:
http://www.iso.org/iso/home/standards/certification/isosurvey.htm?certificate=ISO%2014001&countrycode=#standardpick
The low number of ISO 14001 certificates indicate that Lebanon among other few
Arab countries dont have enough financial and environmental performance data to
measure and improve the management of the environmental impact of firms. To gain
a better understanding of this low number of ISO 14001 certificates it becomes
imperative to understand how the socio-cultural division inhibited the development of
corporate environmental governance in Lebanon. Based on review of literature it is
found that in historical terms, a country such as Lebanon characterized by ethnic
dominance had a high chance of a civil war that is destructive of development. Dajani
(2012) believes that ethnic stereotype in Lebanon leads to corruption and that
National and regional outlooks are usually ethnocentric and are often charged with
hatred and negative stereotypes of nations and regions having different cultural
backgrounds(Dajani, 2012). Monzini further states that In Lebanon, responsibility
for waste management is assigned to municipalities. However, lack of funds, weak
technical know-how, absence of sufficient sanitary landfills and a weak tax system
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have caused most municipalities to pay only minimal attention to this issue, leading to
a widespread environmental problem that will only worsen with time. As a result
more than 700 illegal and unsafe dump sites have been registered throughout the
country and some of the largest ones are becoming a major problem for Lebanon both
in environmental and economical terms(Monzini, 2016). In their efforts to explain
the factors that determine the take-up of ISO 14001 at the global level, Neumayer and
Perkins note that their evidence additionally confirms the proposition that supplyside factors have shaped the uneven diffusion of ISO 14001 (Neumayer and Perkins,
2004). Moreover, they found a statistically significant negative correlation between
ISO 14001 certification counts and productivity. The low number of ISO 14001
certificates in Lebanon calls for investigating the factors hindering or motivating the
adoption of the voluntary ISO 14001 environmental management system (EMS) in
Lebanon. The following hypothesis is addressed in the current study: There is a
significant relation between Lebanese managers attitude towards the list of ISO
series standards and the motives to adopt such standards.
4. REVIEW OF LITERATURE
As to be expected registration with ISO 14001 will become a custom rather than an
exception. Nonetheless, the adoption of this standard in Lebanon has been very slow
as compared to Arab Gulf countries and other developed countries. Massoud and his
associates believe that the major challenges that impede the implementation of ISO
14001- Environmental Management System (EMS) in Lebanon include but are not
limited to:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
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5. METHODOLOGY
5.1 Instrumentation
Following previous research and discussions with university teachers who specialised
in accounting studies, the present authors constructed a Likert-style five-point scale
instruments and asked managers in different firms in Lebanon to respond to fifteen
items by circling the one number that most closely matched their level of agreement
or disagreement with a particular statement. The scale ranged from one through five
and was presented as follows:
1= Strongly Disagree 2=Disagree 3=Undecided 4=Agree 5= Strongly Agree The
response to these items were factor analysed and Factor Scores were used as new
variables in multiple regression analysis.
5.2 Sample
Managers working for a variety of Lebanese firms constituted the population for this
study. A large non-probability sample was selected from this population. Inevitable to
any study are its limitations, as goes for this study. To start with the basics of this
study, the concept of ISO 14001- Environmental Management System and ISO
14051 - Material Flow Cost Accounting and the relation of this family of standards to
accounting and environment is a new phenomenon in Lebanon and selecting an
appropriate population from which to draw information from a representative sample
is easier said than done if not impossible in Lebanon. Factor and Multiple regression
analysis were based on 165 valid responses. Table -2- shows that almost two thirds of
the sample agree and strongly agree that Accounting should play a role in tackling
social and environmental issues.
Table 2
Accounting should play a role in tackling social and environmental issues
Frequency
Valid
SD
D
U
A
SA
Total
5
13
35
50
62
165
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Percent
3.0
7.9
21.2
30.3
37.6
100.0
Valid Percent
3.0
7.9
21.2
30.3
37.6
100.0
228
Cumulative
Percent
3.0
10.9
32.1
62.4
100.0
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Table 3- shows that 49.7% of the sample agree and strongly agree that Tax
incentives motivate companies to recycle.
Table 3
Tax incentives motivate companies to recycle
Frequency
Valid
SD
D
U
A
SA
Total
14
24
45
49
33
165
Percent
8.5
14.5
27.3
29.7
20.0
100.0
Valid Percent
8.5
14.5
27.3
29.7
20.0
100.0
Cumulative
Percent
8.5
23.0
50.3
80.0
100.0
Table 4- and Table 5 show that 29.1% of the of the sample agree and strongly
agree that Benefits of social environmental accounting (SEA) are easy to measure and 23.6
% of the of the sample agree and strongly agree that Costs of social environmental
accounting (SEA) are easy to measure.
Table 4
Benefits of social environmental accounting (SEA) are easy to measure
Frequency
Valid
Percent
Valid Percent
Cumulative Percent
SD
39
23.6
23.6
23.6
45
27.3
27.3
50.9
33
20.0
20.0
70.9
30
18.2
18.2
89.1
SA
18
10.9
10.9
100.0
Total
165
100.0
100.0
Table 5
Costs of social environmental accounting (SEA) are easy to measure
Frequency
Valid
Percent
Valid Percent
Cumulative
Percent
SD
30
18.2
18.2
18.2
69
41.8
41.8
60.0
27
16.4
16.4
76.4
18
10.9
10.9
87.3
SA
21
12.7
12.7
100.0
Total
165
100.0
100.0
Table -6- shows that 89.1% agree and strongly agree that Introducing an
environmental accounting course in universities should help to eliminate corruption.
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Valid
Percent
Valid Percent
Cumulative Percent
SD
1.8
1.8
1.8
15
9.1
9.1
10.9
63
38.2
38.2
49.1
SA
84
50.9
50.9
100.0
Total
165
100.0
100.0
Graph 1 shows that 55.2% of the sample have less than 10 years of experience.
Graph 1
6. RESULTS
6.1 Factor analysis and construct validation
Factor analysis was carried out as a data-reduction technique. Two statistical tests
were conducted to determine the suitability of factor analysis as shown in table 8 -.
First, the Kaisers-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) measure of sampling adequacy score was
0.714, which was well above the recommended level of 0.5. Secondly, Bartletts test
of sphericity was significant (chi square = 1500.33, p < 0.01), which indicated that
there were adequate correlations among the items to allow factor analysis as Principal
Axis Factoring was used as an extraction method and oblique rotation was used as a
rotation method. Table 9- shows that four factors were extracted. The four-factor
solution accounted for 73.189% of the total variance and was easy to label (see Table
-7-). The first factor (which was labelled attitude of Lebanese managers towards ISO
14001- Environmental Management System and ISO 14051 - Material Flow Cost
Accounting) accounted for 29.214% of total variance and was defined by four items.
The second factor (labelled Environmental Accounting Education) accounted for
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20.074% of total variance and was defined by four items with factor loadings greater
than 0.70. The third factor (labelled Environmental Concern) accounted for
12.837% of total variance and was defined by three items with factor loadings greater
than 0.70. The fourth factor (labelled Motives for adopting Environmental
Accounting systems) accounted for 11.064% of total variance and was defined by
four items with factor loadings greater than 0.70.
Table 7
Total Variance Explained
Component
Initial Eigenvalues
% of Variance Cumulative %
29.214
29.214
20.074
49.289
12.837
62.125
11.064
73.189
5.366
78.555
Total
4.382
3.011
1.925
1.660
1
2
3
4
5
Total
4.382
3.011
1.925
1.660
.805
.669
4.463
83.018
.595
3.968
86.985
.458
3.053
90.038
.353
2.352
92.390
10
.263
1.755
94.145
11
.224
1.491
95.636
12
.212
1.413
97.049
13
.186
1.242
98.291
14
.167
1.111
99.402
15
.090
.598
100.000
% of Variance Cumulative %
29.214
29.214
20.074
49.289
12.837
62.125
11.064
73.189
Rotation Sums
of Squared
Loadingsa
Total
3.438
3.326
2.144
2.941
Table 8
KMO and Bartlett's Test
Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy.
Approx. Chi-Square
.714
1500.330
df
105
Sig.
.000
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.893
.155
-.177-
-.233-
.890
.181
-.162-
-.143-
.837
.163
-.175-
-.289-
.753
-.027-
.118
-.427-
.169
.937
-.108-
-.085-
.297
.842
.032
.091
-.026-
.831
-.170-
-.083-
.148
.791
-.232-
-.118-
.204
-.091-
-.861-
-.018-
-.097-
.273
-.790-
-.094-
.230
.203
-.685-
-.310-
-.338-
-.110-
.097
.846
-.275-
.224
.259
.804
.385
-.167-
-.185-
-.746-
.038
.353
-.026-
-.734-
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R Square
Table 11
ANOVAa
Model
Sum of Squares
df
Mean Square
Sig.
Regression
13.596
4
3.399
3.616
.008b
Residual
150.404
160
.940
1
Total
164.000
164
a. Dependent Variable: REGR factor score 1 for analysis 1
b. Predictors: (Constant), Experience, REGR factor score 3 for analysis 1, REGR factor score 2 for
analysis 1, REGR factor score 4 for analysis 1
Table 12
Coefficientsa
T
Unstandardized
Coefficients
Standardized
Coefficients
Model
Sig.
B
Std. Error
(Constant)
-.096.102
REGR factor score 2 for
.053
.076
analysis 1
REGR factor score 3 for
1
-.066.077
analysis 1
REGR factor score 4 for
-.236.076
analysis 1
Experience
.215
.152
a. Dependent Variable: REGR factor score 1 for analysis 1
Beta
-.948-
.345
.053
.702
.484
-.066-
-.859-
.392
-.236-
-3.082-
.002
.107
1.414
.159
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