Stakeholders' requirements and perceptions of corporate environmental disclosure in Libya

Ishwerf, AI

Abstract

This study emphasises on examining various stakeholder groups'
perceptions and requirements and represents an attempt to fill a gap in the
CED literature where the views of non-managerial and non-financial
stakeholders are largely absent. The study explores the perceptions and
requirements of a wide group of stakeholders in the context of a developing
county, Libya. This study contributes to that limited stakeholders' perceptions
and requirements based CED literature. To achieve the aim of this study,
face-to-face semi-structured interviews were adopted as a main instrument to
collecting data. A series of semi-structured interviews were conducted with
individuals and senior representatives of various stakeholder groups. The
data came from 30 stakeholders from six groups of stakeholders namely:
Regulators and Policy Makers; Local Governments; Managers; Employees;
Shareholders and Financial Institutions. Content analysis was used to turn
qualitative data, which was collected via open-ended questions, into
numerical data using NVivo software.
A difference of perceptions and requirements of stakeholder groups towards
CED was identified from the collected data. In general, stakeholders are
interested in, and positively disposed towards CED. However, interviewees
generally perceive that CED is fairly significant to business, but current CED
practice is viewed negatively and weak. Through the empirical study, the
incentives and disincentives for CED are identified. Increasing awareness of
environmental issues, market competition, religious obligation, compliance
with industrial codes and training programmes appear to be the key driving
motivations in the study country, while lack of legal requirements, lack of
knowledge/awareness, absence of demand, issues management, fear of bad
publicity, companies emphasis on economic performance, sensitive and
confidential information, absence of pressure by government states, and
absence of NGOs appear to be impeding CED practices.
Participants believed companies should be accountable to all stakeholder
groups for their environmental impacts and the only way for enforcing CED
practice is using mandatory compliance. The results present evidence of a
widespread demand for mandated CED in a separate stand-alone report.
The results also showed that, information related to environmental activities
have been given the highest priority by all the stakeholders while, the issues
related to environmental financial issues and energy issues have been
placed last and second last on the ranking scale. The results imply that
regulators and policy makers as well companies as have to consider the
policy implications of these other stakeholders' views and requirements. In
addition, the findings require careful consideration by regulators and policy
makers at the national and international levels. Drawing on the empirical
results, the study makes some recommendations for future research aimed
at improving CED practice in Libya and more broadly. This is the first time
this type of research has been conducted in Libya.

Citation

Ishwerf, A. Stakeholders' requirements and perceptions of corporate environmental disclosure in Libya. (Thesis). Salford : University of Salford

• Thesis Type: Thesis
• Deposit Date: Oct 3, 2012
• Award Date: Jan 1, 2012