Environmental Management Accounting Adoption in SMEs: A Mixed-Industry Systematic Review and Integrative Conceptual Framework

Abstract

Environmental Management Accounting (EMA) has increasingly gained importance as a mechanism for integrating environmental information into organisational decision-making, resource management, and sustainability-oriented business practices. However, research on EMA adoption among small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) remains fragmented across industries and theoretical perspectives. This systematic literature review synthesises evidence on EMA adoption across manufacturing, food and beverage, hospitality, chemical, quarrying, recycling, electronics-related, and service-sector SMEs. The review draws on a self-compiled bibliographic dataset comprising 219 entries covering EMA, green accounting, material flow cost accounting, environmental performance, and digital EMA, complemented by three established systematic literature reviews addressing EMA development, strategic decision-making, and green innovation. The synthesis identifies six major thematic dimensions: adoption drivers, implementation barriers, organisational capabilities, digital enablers, performance outcomes, and integration pathways. Building on these findings, the study integrates six theoretical perspectives—Institutional Theory, the Resource-Based View, the Natural-Resource-Based View, the Technology–Organisation–Environment framework, Stakeholder Theory, and Diffusion of Innovation Theory—into a unified conceptual framework for explaining EMA adoption in SMEs. The proposed framework conceptualises institutional pressures as external drivers, organisational capabilities as critical adoption resources, digital technologies as conditional enablers, stakeholder relationships as a mediating mechanism, and industry context as a moderator of adoption outcomes. Eight testable propositions are developed to explain the relationships among these constructs, including a configurational proposition suggesting that effective EMA adoption depends on the combined presence of institutional pressure, organisational capability, and technological readiness. The study contributes to the literature by providing an integrated theoretical explanation of EMA adoption across diverse SME contexts and by establishing a foundation for future empirical research examining cross-industry, cross-country, and longitudinal patterns of EMA implementation.