The concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has had a long and varied history since its beginnings in the 1930s with the seminal work of Berle and Means. Many occidental studies regarding CSR have concentrated on natural environmental management and the influence of social and culture differences on such management. However, such research has not as yet been undertaken to any significant extent in the Malaysian context. To fill this gap, the present study therefore investigated environmental management in Malaysia’s banking sector, and the methods deployed by bank managers in evaluating and accommodating environmental risk in the credit assessment process. Malaysia was chosen as the study location because it is a multi racial country and has a dual banking system (conventional and Islamic banking). These characteristics enabled the study to investigate the influence of cultural and institutional differences on credit evaluation orientations, stakeholders’ group activism and perceptions, and general CSR orientations. To achieve the study aims, a questionnaire survey was designed to collect data from managers and executives in corporate banking departments whose main task is to evaluate loan applications, especially in project financing. The findings obtained from analyses of the data collected suggested that Malaysia’s banking sector has, in general, good environmental management practice. However, local banks’ environmental management practice falls short of that of international banks. It was also found that Islamic banks have better environmental management practice than conventional banks. As regards the credit evaluation process, the study findings suggested that environmental criteria are of secondary importance compared to financial and economic criteria. The study also found that cultural and institutional differences influenced the attitude of bank managers towards environmental management practice. Thus, to improve such practice in the future, these factors should be taken account of in the environmental policy development process if future rules and regulations, including environmental laws, are to gain widespread acceptance across racial and religious boundaries.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:567278 |
| Date | January 2012 |
| Creators | Ali Basah, Mohamad |
| Publisher | Cardiff University |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://orca.cf.ac.uk/25064/ |
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