Environmental Accounting in Albania: Challenges, Perceptions and Factors Influencing Implementation

The research investigates present-day environmental accounting practices in Albania together with organizational-level elements which determine their implementation. The research investigates Albanian business organizations particularly small and medium enterprises to understand their environmental accounting practices under limited institutional support. The research uses stakeholder theory and legitimacy theory and resource-based theory and institutional theory to understand how internal and external elements affect environmental practice adoption. The research uses ordinal logistic regression and OLS linear regression models to test four main hypotheses based on survey data from 151 Albanian non-financial companies and managerial perception analysis. The research findings demonstrate that enterprise size stands as the primary structural element which determines the extent of environmental accounting implementation but sector type and ownership structure and commercial focus do not show statistical significance. The study demonstrates that internal organizational factors which includes EA knowledge levels and sustainability attitudes and absence of implementation barriers leads to positive and significant results. The external forces which include regulatory requirements and social expectations and institutional backing fail to create direct effects on adoption rates. The research develops an empirical framework which demonstrates how internal and external elements influence environmental accounting readiness in Albania's developing economy. The research demonstrates that environmental accounting readiness in Albania requires better regulatory support and environmental education programs and specific training programs for small and medium enterprises.