As organizations tackle global challenges, the faces of our businesses and our economic system are changing to consider the interests of all stakeholders rather than just shareholders. This book provides a step-by-step approach for organizations to reap benefits from a more sustainable approach. It begins with a brief history of the concept of sustainability as it applies to both performance and reporting. Implementing sustainability in an organization begins with the development of policies which are consistent with the expectations of its stakeholders. An organization's active participation in multi-stakeholder initiatives helps to align the policies with societal trends. Once the policies are developed, a management system is crucial to ensure congruence of policies with actual performance. Then, periodic reporting of performance based on well-recognized standards aids stakeholders in assessing an organization's performance-reporting also helps stakeholders to determine if performance aligns with their expectations. Both internal and external assurances build stakeholder trust in the organization's performance and reporting. Finally, the book concludes with a reflection on key messages and potential future actions for continuous improvement.

The revolutionary effects of using accounting information systems by displacing manual information systems in the private and public sectors cannot be overstated. The benefits of this substitution of set of processes include increased mathematical accuracy, predefined fields and coding tasks, and de-emphasis of manual clerical labor in favor of labor adept in data processing. Reporting can be significantly automated, facilitating managerial power and control at a distance and the proliferation of global enterprises. The potential detriments are rarely accurately, completely, and timely addressed as information system vendors, management consultants, and corporate procurement teams race toward the popularly conceived state of the art. Systems are ballyhooed as continually improving in processing speed, functionality, and capacity. Users of these automated systems may not consider big picture effects, and they may not intelligently consider the conduct risks to their own enterprises by concentrating such global reach and influence at high levels of senior management without dedicating adequate resources to verifying the accuracy, completeness, and timeliness of the information systems. This book considers these risks.