Attitudes towards environmental accountability in an emerging economy setting: evidence from India

Promoters of corporate Social and Environmental Accountability (SEA) should be conversant with stakeholders’ attitudes toward enhanced accountability. However, little is known about current attitudes, or their determinants. This study presents a survey of the attitudes of corporate managers across India towards 16 key contemporary environmental management issues. It sought to explore whether respondents from India, characterised by their level of development, differ in their attitudes, towards environmental management. Exploratory factor analysis of the items revealed four distinct environmental factors for Indian respondents. Results indicated that significant differences did exist among the respondents on 7 of the 16 questions raised. The findings indicate that Indian respondents were stronger in their support, and categorised several issues to be more important than other environmental factors.