Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 2007. / Title proper from title frame. Also available in printed format.

Thesis (Ph.D)--Murdoch University, 2007. / Thesis submitted to the Division of Arts. Includes bibliographical references (p. 343-365, 406-409).

Thesis (M.M.S.)--University of Waikato, 2009. / Title from PDF cover (viewed August 31, 2009). Includes bibliographical references (p. 1-37)

Sustainable business practices are fundamental for the future of business, society and the environment within which business operates. In this journey, stakeholders provide a sustainability compass that must be consulted by companies in determining and realigning the business context to their legitimate needs. Businesses have constantly been accused of an imperious attitude towards stakeholders that manifests in one directional conversations designed to manage rather than engage and report objectively on the state of their relationship with stakeholders. Whilst much exploration has been conducted on stakeholder engagement, the cardinal objective of this research was to explore the role of this engagement in determining the gradation of issues in the businesses’ sustainability reporting process. A review of other significant scholarly material highlighted gaps in the realm of this broad subject that were used in the construct of the research questions. Data in this qualitative study was obtained from sustainability practitioners employed by companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. This was achieved through content analysis of their reports and structured in-depth interviews that sought to understand the materiality concept through their stakeholder engagement process. The findings suggest that stakeholder engagement and materiality determination in particular is a complex area fraught with a lot of challenges as well as diversity in approach and purpose. The findings also suggested that the determination of the sustainability content is a unilateral process instituted and guided by the reporting entity with no involvement of other stakeholders beyond the data-gathering phase. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2014. / zkgibs2015 / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / Unrestricted

Many organisations today are still not making use of Management Accounting tools to assist in providing sustainability information for decision-making and the influence this can have on the financial performance of an organisation. This may have a negative impact on the financial performance of organisations, the result of the number of errors and miscalculations that can occur, including obsolete cost drivers; miscalculated business decisions, inaccurate information and human errors. Without applying Management Accounting tools, managers of organisations may find it difficult to improve the day-to-day operations and to take decisions to enhance the financial performance of their business. In this study, information was collected from interviews to determine whether Management Accounting tools could provide sustainability information for decision-making, and how this would influence the financial performance of an organisation. The research was carried out in organisations listed on the JSE. This study found that Management Accounting tools are important in providing sustainability information for decision-making and in determining how this information influences the financial performance of JSE listed organisations. Furthermore, Management Accounting tools provide strategies that influence decision-making and performance, although decision-making is the responsibility of executives or directors of the organisations. The study also found that Management Accounting tasks are performed by financial managers who focus solely on financial statements and reporting. Hence future research should focus on the importance of devolving Management Accounting roles to financial accountants or managers to enable the organisation to focus on different reports for different outcomes. / Management Accounting / M. Phil. (Management Accounting)

M.Sc. (Environmental Management) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

As sustainability increasingly becomes a concern to society, it is in state transportation agencies' best interests to embrace and adopt initiatives that will both educate their employees and the communities they serve on how transportation systems and system operations can be viewed within such a context. One of the strategies some state departments of transportation (SDOTs) have adopted for providing a more sustainable approach to highway design is a "green streets and highways rating system." Adopting a strategy such as the one proposed in this thesis for the Georgia Department of Transportation will enable an agency to compare projects based on sustainability goals and outcomes. Such a rating system can provide several benefits to a state department of transportation. As a public relations tool, publishing the sustainability rating results of completed projects can promote an "environmentally friendly" image of the agency. In some cases, this could be used to garner increased support for an agency's program. Comparing the ratings of proposed projects during the early programming process may also help in the selection of more sustainably effective and efficient projects. Additionally, a project in the project planning phase could use the green rating criteria to identify those areas where changes in design could result in more environmentally sensitive designs. A green streets and highways rating tool is an important means of fostering an environmental ethic in a transportation agency, one that could become more important in years to come.

Thesis (M. S.)--Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2008. / Committee Chair: Bras, Bert; Committee Member: Jeter, Sheldon; Committee Member: McGinnis, Leon. Part of the SMARTech Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Collection.

An increasing number of companies are reporting their environmental performance, impacts, and activities. The objectives of such reports are many including, in particular, reacting to external pressures from company stakeholders demanding more information about environmental performance. This might also be matched by management requiring information to better run the business - hence an internal requirement for information that would then be available for publication. Because, this environmental reporting serves multiple objectives and satisfies different needs of different readers, it varies in the type of information provided, the scope and depth of material disclosed, presentation formats used, the credibility of the information provided and its overall quality. Although richness of report content, scope of topics covered, presentation and credibility of this content have all been used to assess the quality of corporate environmental reporting (CER), to date most prior studies have looked simply at the volume of and/or the types of information when assessing the quality of CER. Studies have used two main indices to measure disclosure quality; subjective analysts' indices and semi-objective indices. Subjective indices such as the Association of Investment Management and Research (AIMR), formerly the Financial Analysts Federation (FAF) disclosure ratings, are built on corporate disclosures' ratings weighted by a panel of leading analysts in each industry. In semi-objective indices, on the other hand, a pre-determined list of items (topics of disclosure) is developed and tested for their presence (absence ) and/or the richness of their content. It is noted that most disclosure studies adopt this second approach in the form of disclosure index studies, a partial type of content analysis. Other disclosure measures have included textual analysis such as thematic content analysis, readability studies, and linguistic analysis. However, there is no consensus about the best measure for assessing reporting quality. One of the most important limitations encountered in the disclosure literature is the difficulty in assessing the quality of disclosure (Healy and Palepu, 2001; Urquiza et al., 2009). For example, these studies identify three key limitations. Firstly, there is inherent subjectivity involved in the selection of the quality measure and in the coding scheme to assess this 'quality' generally researchers choose their own methods or proxies. Secondly, there is an ignorance of the quality perceptions of preparers and users of corporate disclosure. Hammond and Miles (2004) argue that we cannot assess the quality of disclosure independently of a detailed understanding of users' need of disclosure. Thirdly, it has been common to use annual reports (ARs) to assess the extent and quality of corporate responsibility disclosure, ignoring the other reporting media such as corporate responsibility reports (CRRs), websites, home advertisings, etc (Forst et al., 2005; KPMG, 2011). Thus considering the fact that robust, reliable, and replicable quality assessment is problematic, the objectives of this research are threefold. Firstly, to build a more representative quality model based on the findings of a questionnaire ascertaining the views of both preparers and distinct categories of readers of ARs and/or CRRs. Secondly, to apply this model to FTSE 100 CER in both ARs and CRRs to ascertain whether the proxies frequently used in prior literature yield similar results to those derived from this more complex model. Thirdly, to investigate whether the common use of ARs, rather than more detailed CRRs in assessing CER quality is giving a misleading picture of the level and richness of disclosure available to stakeholders.

This study presents an examination of how institutional characteristics might influence a four-year institution of higher education’s achievement in sustainability, as measured by the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment, and Rating System (STARS). Specifically, it examined the potential role Carnegie classification, sector, location, number of students, and number of tenuretrack faculty might play in an institution’s Education & Research, Operations, and Planning, Administration, & Engagement scores on the STARS instrument. Multivariate regression analysis and Classification and Regression Tree (CART) modeling were both administered to a data set of 204 U.S.-based four-year institutions. Results suggested that the number of tenuretrack faculty did have a significant, positive, influence on an institution’s Education & Research and Planning, Administration & Engagement scores. In addition, the CART analysis provided a number of organizational profiles that suggested the types of institutions that achieved significantly higher STARS scores, mainly those considered “liberal arts” and “research intensive”. A discussion on the role of faculty members in sustainability planning is provided as well as recommendations for campus sustainability leaders. / Department of Educational Studies