Accounting literature has viewed sustainability in terms of social, economic and environmental performances. There have been concerns that the relationship between sustainability, accounting and organizational performance cannot be explained unless we can deduce patterns of administrative behaviour that chronicle management practices. Ecology, Sustainable Development and Accounting argues that, despite the broader social and economic development dimensions of sustainability and the limitations of its extension to corporate and organizational behaviour; an ecological framework is capable of providing the overall societal and community chronologies that describe corporate sustainable operations. Drawing examples from international development and federal government organizations, this book documents the link between ecology, corporate sustainable development, and sustainability accounting and reporting. It draws together the literature from several disciplines to elaborate the contribution of the ecological approach to sustainable development in the accounting literature. This book will be of particular interest to students, academics and practitioners in the areas of environmental studies, ecological economics, sustainable development studies, and social and environmental accounting. The sociological and anthropological perspectives make this book the first of its kind to apply the population ecology of sociology to both the sustainability and accounting literature.

Accounting literature has viewed sustainability in terms of social, economic and environmental performances. There have been concerns that the relationship between sustainability, accounting and organizational performance cannot be explained unless we can deduce patterns of administrative behaviour that chronicle management practices. Ecology, Sustainable Development and Accounting argues that, despite the broader social and economic development dimensions of sustainability and the limitations of its extension to corporate and organizational behaviour; an ecological framework is capable of providing the overall societal and community chronologies that describe corporate sustainable operations. Drawing examples from international development and federal government organizations, this book documents the link between ecology, corporate sustainable development, and sustainability accounting and reporting. It draws together the literature from several disciplines to elaborate the contribution of the ecological approach to sustainable development in the accounting literature. This book will be of particular interest to students, academics and practitioners in the areas of environmental studies, ecological economics, sustainable development studies, and social and environmental accounting. The sociological and anthropological perspectives make this book the first of its kind to apply the population ecology of sociology to both the sustainability and accounting literature.

In times of economic turbulence, an organization's ability to learn from its environment and adopt innovations enhances its competitive advantage as well its ability to improve its performance. This book focuses specifically on the contribution learning and innovation in management accounting can contribute to the success of the organization. However, all management accounting innovations may not be successful. The success of an innovation is contingent upon whether the learning and implementation processes have been properly integrated. When they are not, an innovation that has been successful in one organization may fail in another. An integrative framework is developed for studying management accounting process innovations. The framework draws on theories from organizational sociology. It focuses on the impact of the innovation on the organization along two important dimensions. First, to what degree does the innovation alter the organization's management accounting system (labeled as extent)? Second, what portion of the organization is affected by the change (labeled as scope)? We classified these dimensions on a continuum ranging from high or low. This yields a 2x2 contingency framework. The book examines each of the resulting four situations using both Argyris's typology of single and double loop learning as well as the variety of theories used to explain the adoption, or failure to adopt, a particular innovation, e.g., Rogers, Sandberg, in an organization. Recent management accounting innovations such as Activity Based Costing (ABC) and Balanced Scorecard (BSC) are used to illustrate the concepts and examples drawn from organizational practices. ABC and BSC are used as examples of management accounting innovations to illustrate why they are more successful in some organizations but not in others.

This text applies sociological approaches to organizational change and development to explain process innovation and diffusion in internal auditing and management accounting systems. While management accounting reports have emphasized the measurement of quality and improved organizational performance, the extent to which process innovation strategies of total quality management (TQM) and reengineering have been integrated into behavioral accounting research has been limited. The book broadens quality and process innovation research by incorporating theories from organizational development, systems analysis, organizational learning, contingency theory, population ecology and collaborative management. In doing so, it integrates the study of TQM and reengineering into management accounting, internal auditing and control systems. TQM and process reengineering are presented as specific process innovation approaches, which can bring about either incremental or radical organizational change and development in management control systems, particularly in internal auditing and accounting control systems.

This volume develops and applies a power control exchange framework of accounting that incorporates both the structural-functional (SF) (rational choice model) and the conflict-pluralistic (CP) (political choice model) to study management/organizational control systems as a resource exchange process. The framework proposes that control as an exchange process depends on two factors: basis of power, classified as SF-rational or CP-political and perceived availability of resources, dichotomized as relative slack or relative scarcity. The relationship between these two factors yields four types of resource exchange: co-operative, competitive, distributive or unequal. These resource exchange typologies are discussed and applied to study management accounting/control systems within the context of divisionalized business organizations. The book concludes with a chronological review of research together with applications for for-profit organizations.

Recent technological and environmental changes have shifted the operations of management control systems from meeting separate, individually based budgetary goals to management control techniques that emphasize group and team control structures. Accordingly, team-based management controls that incorporate normative, instrumental, and coercive controls are being used in complex organizations to monitor production quality and cost control, manage incentive systems, and design and implement management accounting systems. This book provides the first attempt to bring the theory of organizational ecology to the forefront in behavioral accounting research. The adaptation framework has been utilized to incorporate environmental and technological issues as well as organizational structural and contextual factors to examine recent developments in management control systems, particularly the use of accounting systems in managing the performance of teams. Researchers and teachers in graduate programs, managers in business, and service organizations who use work groups to manage their organization activities should find this work an immense addition to their collections.