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This article describes an approach to strategy execution using lessons learned from improvement efforts to the sales incentive compensation (SIC) business processes and IT systems in Cisco Systems.

This case outlines an alternative approach to strategy execution–a COAR strategy map methodology– illustrated with lessons learned from efforts to improve the sales incentive compensation business processes and IT systems in Cisco Systems.”

By following a structured and systematic process, organizations can implement a process for strategy execution that is effective and repeatable. In executing strategy, stay focused on how to translate the decisions taken while defining business strategy into operations. As business strategy changes, elements of the strategy execution must change as well.

This case is primarily a guide to strategy execution and is not meant to be a prescription for a cutting edge sales compensation plan.

Although the examples used in this article relate to SIC business processes, the lessons learned can be applied to strategy execution in general.

It is this “peek forward” into a virtual execution setting, and the opportunity to use it as a scenario-like tool to test alternatives, that increases the likelihood that managers will devise a stable and executable strategy.

In the Covid-19 pandemic era, corporate responsibility and accountability for maintaining employee health and safety, particularly from this pernicious virus, have become a matter of major social and economic importance. From an accountability through action perspective, this study aims to set out to evaluate the potential occupational health and safety accountability consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic.

This paper is based upon purposive sampling of several sets of publicly available data including published research literature addressing corporate social responsibility and accountability, and the literature more specifically addressing occupational health and safety (OHS) and its reporting. Also included are recent Web-based reports and articles concerning Covid-19-related OHS government and industry sponsored guidelines for employers and their workplaces across the UK and Australia.

The findings of this research highlight that firstly, the extant literature on OHS has been predominantly functionalist in its approach and that accountability through action provides an opportunity to make employers more visibly accountable for their response to Covid-19. Secondly, the paper highlights that despite recent progress on OHS issues significant concerns remained in the pre-Covid-19 era and that emerging regulations and legal obligations on employees have the potential to make OHS issues a prominent part of corporate social responsibility research.

Disease and mental health statistics reveal the potential significance of their expansion in the Covid-19 environment, and regulatory and legal liability concerns emerge as potential drivers of renewed corporate as well as researcher attention to OHS issues. Implications for the emergence of a broader range of accountability forms and visibilities are also canvassed.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of management control systems (MCS) in organisational change towards sustainability. In particular, it examines the extent to which MCS may be instrumental in transformative organisational change in this sphere.

Through an in-depth case study of an Australian multinational corporation in the property sector, this paper explores the possibilities for MCS to influence organisational change towards a multi-bottom-line, balanced approach to social and environmental challenges facing corporations. MCS are conceptualised using Simons’ (1995) Levers of Control framework. On the question of sustainability, the approach adopted in this paper contrasts with much of the prior literature that largely takes a predominantly pragmatist approach and equates sustainability performance with financial performance. The prior literature generally reports a positive role for MCS in organisational change efforts. By contrast, drawing on the typology developed by Hopwood et al. (2005), this paper views sustainability as requiring a balancing of economic, social and environmental concerns.

The findings indicate that although MCS are not irrelevant, they do not play a transformative role in enabling deep-seated organisational change towards sustainability. The critical literature on the nature of MCS is drawn upon to explore the reasons for the observed non-role.

The analysis sheds light on factors that may influence the effectiveness of conventional notions of MCS in organisational change. The findings contribute to the debate regarding the suitability of continued efforts at using conventional notions of management accounting and MCS in enabling organisational change towards greater social and environmental sustainability. The paper also highlights the value of a critical examination of the usefulness of management accounting and control practices in the context of organisational change towards sustainability.

The authors introduce readers to the eXperience-verse revolution, the next strategic frontier of cloud business innovation and value co-creation.

The eXperience-verse revolution unfolds concurrently with the evolution of the digital technologies and as enterprises learn to harness them and create greater and more unique, personalized value to all stakeholding individuals-as-experiencers.

Unlike the previous four Industrial Revolutions driven by technology, this new era requires an “experience-first” frame of reference of value creation by every enterprise.

Emerging technologies are leveraged at the moment of engagement between the enterprise and the experiencers?the goal is to engender value to the individual-as-experiencer.

As industry clouds now accelerate strategic business innovation of interactive experience ecosystems, a whole new dimension of value-innovation and value-creation is being created - the “eXperience-verse”.

The purpose of this study is to augment an understanding of the importance and relevance of a proposed new definition of accounting to reset, inform and develop accounting education, professional practice and research, from tomorrow, for the purpose of shaping a better world. In the process of setting an agenda, we outline, discuss, and analyse the eight articles which follow depicting complementary and insightful scenarios during COVID-19.

This study applies an original informing framework for discussion and analysis purposes, described as Framework of the Multidimensional Nature of Accounting. The proposed, multidimensional definition is “Accounting is a technical, social and moral practice concerned with the sustainable utilisation of resources and proper accountability to stakeholders to enable the flourishing of organisations, people and nature” (Carnegie et al., 2021a, p. 69, 2021b).

Accounting is conceived, understood and examined in the research portrayed as a combined technical, social and moral practice concerned with shaping a better world to enable the flourishing of organisations, people and nature. To the contrary, accounting is not recognised as a mere neutral, benign, technical practice.

While this paper examines the other articles, there is no substitute for carefully reading, and reflecting on, all the articles published. Importantly, each contribution provides unique and comprehensive insights on accounting during the initial global pandemic period.

Accounting is studied in different organisational and social contexts against the backdrop of a global pandemic, among other “wicked problems” worldwide.

The purpose of this paper is to examine and explain the complex interrelationships which influence the ability of firms to create value for their providers of finance and other stakeholders (loosely referred to in practice as “integrated thinking”). In doing so it examines the interrelationships between: environmental, social and governance (ESG) risk; delivering on corporate strategy; non-financial corporate reporting; and, board oversight.

Interviews were conducted with board chairs and non-executive directors of large listed companies on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (where Boards are required to have a social and ethics sub-committee and approve integrated reports which have been mandatory since 2010) and the Australian Stock Exchange (where Board directors’ liability legislation results in Boards being reluctant to adopt integrated reporting which is voluntary).

The research finds that contemporary reporting processes, and in particular those set out in the King III Code and the International Integrated Reporting Framework, influence cognitive frames enhancing board oversight and assisting organisations in managing complexity. This results in increased awareness of the impact of ESG issues together with a broader view of value creation despite investor disinterest.

A number of avenues of research are suggested to further examine the interrelationships identified.

The research assists the development of practice and policy by articulating and enhancing the understanding of linkages, which loosely fall under the vague practitioner term “integrated thinking”.

The conceptualisation can inform national and global discussions on the appropriateness of corporate reporting and governance models to achieve sustainable development and contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals.

The paper conceptualises emerging and complex interrelationships. The cross-country comparison allows an assessment of the extent to which different national social contexts with differing governance and reporting frameworks lead to different perspectives on, and approaches to, value creation.