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This paper aims to examine whether the perceived pressures from stakeholders with high potential to cooperate and/or threaten the firm’s survival affect the decision to adopt carbon management strategies (CMSs).

A logistic panel regression model is estimated using longitudinal data from Australia’s Top-200 listed firms over seven years from 2009 to 2015. The authors test the firm’s propensity to adopt CMSs conditioned on the influence of four groups of stakeholders: the regulators, institutional investors, media and creditors. Data on CMSs adopted by firms are sourced from Thomson Reuters ASSET4 database, the Carbon Disclosure Project survey, annual reports, company websites and sustainability reports.

The authors show that stakeholder pressures are associated not only with the adoption or non-adoption of CMSs but also with the type of CMSs adopted. Three types of CMSs are identified, namely, compensation, reduction and innovation strategies. The findings reveal that CMS adoption and the firms’ propensity to adopt compensation and reduction strategies are significantly related to perceived pressures from the regulators, media and creditors. While pressure from the regulators is also associated with the firms’ propensity to adopt innovation strategies, a more advanced type of CMSs, the potential pressure from the media and creditors are not significantly related.

The findings imply that a firm’s adoption of CMSs is not merely about managing stakeholders in the regulatory sphere but also about taking into account the perceived pressures from non-regulatory stakeholders and the context-dependent nature of their influences. The authors show that by influencing the voluntary disclosure of carbon emissions, the government continues to be effective in encouraging firms to take action on climate change despite the abolition of the carbon tax in Australia.

This study highlights that, apart from a heavy-handed approach, regulators can adopt softer forms of regulation such as the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting (NGER) Act and a less invasive, stakeholder-driven approach to encourage firms to adopt CMSs and thereby work towards climate change mitigation.

This study extends the literature by showing that perceived pressure from some stakeholders found to be influential in relation to some corporate decisions (such as environmental strategy adoption and climate-change-related disclosure) may not necessarily be influential in relation to CMS adoption.

This paper aims to provide insights into stakeholder expectations regarding the types of disclosures a firm should make, and if dissatisfied with the disclosure policy, whether it will use different intervention strategies in an attempt to induce the desired disclosure outcome.

An inductive qualitative framework is used in the study. In‐depth interviews, triangulated against relevant web site and media releases, are used to identify the salient stakeholders and the major environmental issues in Malaysia. Then an experimental approach is used based on role‐playing whereby experienced participants are introduced to hypothetical vignettes that relate to environmental issues identified.

The results indicate that the preferred form of disclosure is for the firms to “defend” the reasons behind the environmental event and/or explain what has been done to rectify the situation. With relatively few exceptions, the preferred strategies chosen by various participants align well with the influence strategies identified by Frooman. The findings confirm that although Frooman's model is useful in predicting stakeholder influence strategies, its effectiveness is tempered by the level of significance placed on the event by the stakeholders.

Although based on a small sample, the results suggest that stakeholder theory has much to offer in terms of understanding management/stakeholder behaviour and corporate environmental disclosures.

The paper extends the application of stakeholder influence strategies in the “environmental reporting” domain. Likewise, it attempts to address the scarcity of literature taking the view of a wide array of stakeholders and how they choose to influence the firm. Finally, it confirms that stakeholder theory can be extended to aid the understanding of events in non‐western developing economies such as Malaysia.

The purpose of this longitudinal study is to examine the determinants of carbon management strategy (CMS) adoption among Australia’s top 200 listed firms.

A legitimacy theory framework is adopted to investigate whether any significant relationship exists between a firm’s decision to adopt CMS and internal organisational factors, such as the presence of an environmental management system (EMS), as well as corporate governance factors like having an environmental committee, board size and board independence. Content analysis of Carbon Disclosure Project data and other publicly available information sourced from firm websites, annual reports and stand-alone sustainability reports is conducted, covering the period from 2008 to 2012.

Logistic regression analyses confirm that firms adopting CMS are more likely to have an EMS, an environmental committee, larger board size and greater board independence. The study also finds significant association between CMS adoption, firm size, leverage and environmental sensitivity of the firm’s industry.

The study shows that internal organisational factors and corporate governance attributes play a vital role in maintaining organisational legitimacy through CMS adoption. The findings of this study should be of interest to report providers (i.e. reporting firms), report users (such as investors and consumers) and policymakers.

Stakeholder theory has been used extensively as it offers a way to address the changing demands in a dynamic business environment. This study aims to use stakeholder theory to analyze corporate environmental behavior by Australian listed companies.

By adopting Ullmann's three‐dimensional framework comprising stakeholder power, strategic posture, and economic performance, an ordinary least squares (OLS) regression model is developed. Three measures of stakeholder power are used: shareholder power (SP), creditor power, and government power (GP). Strategic posture is represented by the level of management's environmental concern (EC) and economic performance is proxied by the firm's return on assets (ROA). Using the 2002 Australian Conservation Foundation environmental performance ranking, the OLS model tests for any significant relationships between corporate environmental performance and the three components of the framework.

The findings suggest that the level of ownership dispersion (SP), the industry sensitivity characterized by the increased governmental sanctions (GP) as well as the management's concern for the environment (EC) are the significant factors influencing the decision to incorporate superior environmental activities in corporate strategic plans. Measures of economic performance (ROA) show no significant relation with the firms' environmental performance. Likewise, suggestions that size and age of the firms could act as intervening variables are not supported by the results.

The empirical results provide evidence that the application of stakeholder theory can contribute towards one's understanding of how corporate entities behave, particularly in adapting to the rapidly changing business environment where environmental issues are becoming increasingly important.

Work-integrated learning (WIL) helps improve the work readiness of accounting graduates. The purpose of this paper is to explore the role played by large and small-to-medium enterprise (SME) employers in providing experiential learning opportunities to accounting students in an Australian higher education context.

Case-study data for this research were collected from the case university’s processes, semi-structured in-depth interviews with employer representatives and online survey with WIL students.

The analysis reveals that both SMEs and large firms provide good training opportunities that enhance the student’s experiential learning particularly when proper WIL structures for pre-placement processes, training, supervision and performance reviews are in place. The results also confirm that WIL is seen as a positive experience by employers and students alike.

There is a three-way partnership between the university, employers and students in a WIL contract. Calls for collaborative research involving all three parties have been made to enhance WIL programs. This study is a response to this call.