Motives For, Benefit From and Accounting Support to the ISO 14001 Standard Implementation

Economic Horizons, January - April 2018, Volume 20, Number 1, 25 - 41 UDC: 33 eISSN 2217-9232 © Faculty of Economics, University of Kragujevac www. ekfak.kg.ac.rs Original scientific paper UDC: 502:657:006.332 doi:10.5937/ekonhor1801027J MOTIVES FOR, BENEFITS FROM AND ACCOUNTING SUPPORT TO THE ISO 14001 STANDARD IMPLEMENTATION Dejan Jovanovic* and Vesna Janjic Faculty of Economics, University of Kragujevac, Kragujevac, The Republic of Serbia With an increase in the number of the companies that have adopted the ISO 14001 standard, the interest demonstrated in research studies regarding the assessment of the motives for and benefits from the ISO 14001 standard implementation has also been increasing. Nevertheless, in spite of the importance of the ISO 14001 standards, a discussion on their importance and the role of accounting in this process yet remains an open issue among researchers and practitioners. Starting from the above said, the main purpose of the research conducted in this paper is to identify the motives for and benefits from the implementation of the ISO 14001 standard and to examine the role of accounting in the implementation process. The empirical research in this paper was performed on the example of the 33 companies that have the obligation to submit their data on the sources of environmental pollution to the National Pollution Register. The data were collected through a poll of the management of the companies via a questionnaire, whereas the data analysis was performed by using various quantitative statistical methods and techniques, and primarily through the application of descriptive statistics and non-parametric tests. The results of the research indicate that the primary motives for the introduction of the ISO 14001 standards are an environmental responsibility, creating the image of a socially responsible company and the improvement of performances, whereas the benefits can be synthesized through the improvement of environmental performances, efficiency and profitability. Also, the results of the research study indicate that the managers of the companies partly recognize the role of accounting in the implementation of the ISO 14001 standard. The main conclusion of the research is that the management of the companies partly recognize the role of accounting in the ISO 14001 standards implementation. The main conclusion of the research is that the management of the companies in Serbia understand the importance of the implementation of the ISO 14001 standards, but not to a proper extent, as well as the role of accounting in that process. Keywords: environmental protection, enterprise, ISO 14001 standard, motives, benefits, accounting JEL Classification: Q51, Q56, Q57, M14, M41 INTRODUCTION Over the past decades, the impact of industrial organizations on the environment has become * Correspondence to: D. Jovanović, Faculty of Economics, University of Kragujevac, Dj. Pucara 3, 34000 Kragujevac, The Republic of Serbia; e-mail: apparent. On a global scale, this has led to the fact that many enterprises invest all their efforts in seeking the management instruments that enable them to decrease a negative impact on the environment and increase their economic efficiency. An environmental management system is one of the instruments that have contributed to the achievement of this goal 26 Economic Horizons (2018) 20(1), 25 - 41 and attracted the increased attention of international researchers. The most popular and the most commonly used system is the ISO 14001 standard. The International Organization for Standardization presented a series of the ISO 14000 standards in 1996, these being the voluntary procedures that companies should adopt in their environmental protection management processes. The initial reaction to these standards was not good. Namely, in 1999, three years after the publishing of these standards, there were 10,000 ISO 14001 certificates throughout the world. Nevertheless, around 2002, there were over 46,000 certificates; in 2005, there were more than 88,000 certificates (Gavronski, Ferrer & Paiva, 2008), and in 2016, there were more than 340,000 certificates worldwide (www.iso.org). The increase in the number of the enterprises that have implemented the ISO 14001 standard has led to an increased interest of researchers in identifying the motives for (Boiral & Sala, 1998; Hillary, 2004; Link & Naveh, 2006; Gadenne, Kennedy & McKevier, 2009; Tari, Molina-Azorin & Heras, 2012). Also, having in mind the importance of information for a successful implementation of the ISO 14001 standards, the interest of researchers in the examination of the role and importance of accounting in the environmental protection management process has been growing (Wilmshurst & Frost, 2001; Yakou & Dorweiler, 2004; Vasile & Man, 2012). These studies are mainly focused on the development of the market economy, whereas research studies in developing countries are limited. The subject of the research study carried out in this paper is the motives for and benefits from the implementation of the ISO 14001 standards and the role of accounting in its implementation. The aim of the research is to identify the motives for and benefits from the implementation of the ISO 14001 standards and to examine the role of accounting in the process of the implementation of the ISO 14001 standards. Having in mind the defined topic, the goal of the research, as well as the research hypothesis, the qualitative and quantitative methodologies have been applied in the paper. The application of a qualitative methodology is reflected in consulting the relevant literature in order to create the theoretical foundation for conducting the research study and for testing the research hypothesis. The empirical research was carried out on the example of the enterprises that have the obligation to submit their data on the sources of the pollution of the environment media to the National Register of the Sources of Pollution, according to the provisions of the PRTR (Pollutant Release and Transfer Register) Protocol. The data collection was carried out by using the questionnaire distributed to the management of the enterprises. The data analysis was performed by applying various quantitative statistical methods and techniques, primarily by applying descriptive statistics and nonparametric tests. The work is structured into five sections. After the introduction, the paper provides an overview of the literature creating the basis for the formulation of the research hypothesis. In the third section, the research methodology is explained. After that, in the fourth section, the results of the conducted empirical research are presented. Finally, in the fifth section, the conclusions are given, the contribution of the paper is highlighted, and the limitations and domains of future research studies are indicated. LITERATURE REVIEW The Conceptual Basis of the Environmental Management Systems The applica (...truncated)