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This paper aims to identify the knowledge and practice gap in accounting education and propose an alternative teaching method to align accounting education to meet the needs of the practical world.

A total of 500 questionnaires were circulated among four stakeholders (academics, accounting students, accountants in business and accountants in practice) and received an overall usable response rate of 27%.

It was found that to reflect the current accounting practices, accounting students should be exposed to accounting specific experiential learning and industry specific training at an early stage of their academic education. Universities and professional institutes can work together to develop a curriculum to create an elite league of accounting professionals.

The insights of this study would provide guidance to educators on how to develop an advance experiential learning structure for students that reflects the current accounting practices and technologies involved.

This study contributes to the existing literature by means of providing an alternative teaching method for undergraduate accounting degree program.

This study investigates the implementation of a sustainable circular business model from an accounting perspective. Its goal is to understand if and how decision- makers use management accounting systems, and what changes are needed if these systems are to support the transition toward a circular economy.

Dialogic accounting theory frames the case study of six companies that built a value network to develop and implement an innovative packaging solution consistent with circular economy principles. Content analysis was utilised to investigate the accounting tools used.

The findings indicate that circular solutions generate new organisational configurations based on value networks. Interestingly, managers’ decision-making process largely bypassed the accounting function; they relied on informal accounting and life cycle analysis, which stimulated a multi-stakeholder dialogue in a life cycle perspective.

The research provides theoretical and practical insights into the capability of management accounting systems to support companies seeking circular solutions.

The authors offer implications for accounting practice, chief financial officers (CFOs) and accounting educators, suggesting that a dialogic approach may support value retention of resources, materials and products, as required by the circular economy.

The research contributes to the debate about the role of accounting in sustainability, specifically the need for connecting for resource efficiency at the corporate level with the rationalisation of resource use within planetary boundaries.

The study contributes to the limited research into the role of management accounting in a company’s transition to circular business models. Dialogic accounting theory frames exploration of how accounting may evolve to help businesses become accountable to all stakeholders, including the environment.

This study investigated the visibility of carbon emissions allowances accounting in the financial reports of 32 clean development mechanism (CDM) projects in the UAE to uncover the obstacles to setting consistent standards for carbon emission accounting. As carbon emissions are monetized as credits, consistent accounting standards can aid decision-makers in the development of carbon emission mitigation strategies.

This study used a grounded theoretical framework for exploring the terms used in the policy documents of international accounting bodies regarding accounting standards and guidelines for carbon emission credits. Raw qualitative data were gathered, and an inductive approach was used by analyzing documents from various sources using the qualitative data text analysis software QDA Miner 6.

The findings showed that the financial statement reports of the corporations did not include disclosure of the carbon credit account. This omission was due to the lack of global standardization of carbon credit accounts and emission allowance recognition. This may hinder the production of a comprehensive report containing accurate and valuable financial information relevant to all stakeholders.

The study is among the first to use a grounded theoretical framework to investigate whether corporations are applying common standards and guidelines for carbon emissions accounting.

This study aims to take a step toward integrating research regarding the image, role and identity of management accountants by understanding how employers’ perceptions of the ideal management accountant image differ from operational managers’ perceived role expectations, how management accountants perceive their identity and how those factors shape management accountants’ understanding of who they are and want to be.

A qualitative design draws upon the case company’s 100 job advertisements and 31 semi-structured interviews with management accountants and operational managers. Those data are entwined with role theory and its core concepts of expectations and identities and also early recruitment-related theoretical aspects such as image and employer branding.

The findings reveal how employers’ perceptions of the ideal image and operational managers’ role expectations shape and influence the identity of management accountants. However, management accountants distance themselves from a brand image and role expectations. They experience identity conflict between their current and desired identity, the perception of not being able to perform the currently desired role. Although this study presents some possible reasons and explanations, such as employer branding for the misalignment and discrepancy between perceptions of employer (image), expectations of operational managers (role) and management accountants’ self-conception of the role (identity), this study argues that the identity of a management accountant results from organizational aspects of image and role and individual aspects of identity.

Image and external role expectations can challenge identity construction and also serve as a source of conflict and frustration; thus, a more comprehensive approach to studying the identity of management accountants is necessary to understand what contributes to the fragility of their identity.

The results provide an understanding of the dynamics of the image, role and identity to support management accountants and employers and to further address the suggested dissonance and ambiguities.

This study contributes by showing how the dynamics and connections between the image, role and identity influence the identity construction of management accountants. Moreover, this study shows how overpromising as a part of employer branding might not reflect the reality experienced by management accountants but may cause frustration and threaten the management accountants’ identity.

The purpose of this paper is to gain insights into the gap between management accounting professional’s role and the societal expectations of the management accounting professionals in Sri Lanka.

A quantitative research approach was adopted to identify the statistical gap of the management accountant’s role and society’s expectations. Four business sectors were selected from Colombo Stock Exchange as of 31 December 2018. Sample consisted of 160 entities; 480 questionnaires were distributed among three stakeholders (financial accountant/manager, management accountant and human resource manager). Out of the 228 responses received, only 171 responses were usable. Exhibiting an overall response rate of 35.6 per cent.

The role expectation of management accountants varies significantly across the selected business sectors in Sri Lanka. There is an increasing demand for contemporary management accounting skills in Sri Lanka.

The insights of this study would be of use to policy makers and policy implementers to examine and develop remedial measures to enhance the creditability and transparency of the management accounting profession in Sri Lanka. Academic and professional educational providers can identify future trends and necessary skills of management accounting to improve management accounting curriculum.

The evidence from this study contributes to the literature of societal importance of management accounting from a Sri Lankan perspective.

Drawing insights from finance and non-finance managers in Sri Lanka, this study unveils complexities and conflicts surrounding the roles of management accountants and the nature of role construction stemming from differing expectations of non-finance managers and external influences.

This paper adopts the qualitative methodology and leans on role theory and new institutional sociology (NIS), as these dual theories complement each other and enable a holistic understanding of management accountants' roles, complexities and conflicts.

The findings reveal that in fulfilling their roles on par with divisional goals, amid expectations of non-finance managers and external influences, management accountants face various complexities and conflicts. Furthermore, in navigating through their roles, understanding the operational realities of work organizations and business sectors and negotiating with non-finance managers is vital.

This research draws evidence from a selection of finance and non-finance managers. Thus the findings are not expected to be generalized to business firms in Sri Lanka.

This paper offers practitioner insights into how management accountants could construct their roles in different organizational settings, balancing the expectations of non-finance managers and external influences.

Despite its importance, complexities and conflicts surrounding management accountants' roles amid multiple influences have attracted scant research attention. Hence this paper is a noteworthy addition to the literature. Besides, using role theory and NIS in tandem although apt, has not been the focus of prior researchers in delving into this phenomenon.

The purpose of this study is to examine the role of selected sociodemographic variables in the ethical decision-making (EDM) process of professional accountants in Nigeria.

The study obtained data from 329 professional accountants with the aid of a structured questionnaire containing four dilemmatic ethical vignettes. The data were analysed using Kendall correlation, Kruskal–Wallis and Jonckheere–Terpstra tests.

The results revealed that upbringing, especially parental discipline, and education are significant sociodemographic determinants of EDM. Religion and experience played little or no significant role in predicting accountants’ EDM in the face of ethical dilemmas.

The study used a questionnaire to measure its variables, which may bias and somewhat inflate the findings. Hence, caution should be applied regarding its conclusion.

The evidence in this study could stimulate policy change and review to include a separate ethics course in the accounting education curriculum, which could enhance the ethics training of future accountants. This is important for countries like Nigeria, where no provision is made for a discrete ethics course in the curriculum for accounting under-graduate education.

The study draws attention to the fact that ethical conduct among professionals and in society could be enhanced through proper upbringing and formal education.

The study adds some uniqueness in focusing on professional accountants in Nigeria, a developing country with high corruption profile and weak government institutions, and, as such, contributes to the limited research output on accounting ethics in developing countries.

In the context of Portugal, this study examines the stereotypes of accountants held by laypeople and how they are influenced by financial crises and accounting scandals.

To better understand the social images of accountants, the authors adopt a structural approach based on the big five model (BFM) of personality. The authors test this approach on a Portuguese community sample (N = 727) using a questionnaire survey. The results are analyzed considering the socioanalytic theory.

The results suggest the existence of a stereotype dominated by features of conscientiousness, which is related to the superior performance of work tasks across job types. This feature comprises the core characteristics of the traditional accountant stereotype, which survives in a context challenged by financial scandals and crises. The findings highlight the social acceptance of accountants as an occupational group but do not suggest the possibility of accountants benefiting from the highest levels of social status when considered in relation to the traditional accountant stereotype.

By combining the BFM and the socioanalytic theory, this study provides a unique theoretical approach to better understand the social images of accountants. The findings demonstrate the suitability of using the BFM to study the social perceptions of accountants. They also indicate a paradox based on the survival of the traditional stereotype. This stereotype appears to be resistant to scandals and financial crisis, instead of being impaired, giving rise to another prototype with concerns about integrity.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of leadership in management accounting change processes and outcomes.

The paper draws on an ethnographic study in a Southern European company and mobilizes leader–follower relations as a method theory to analyse the observations.

The findings show how a leadership dispute between two top managers can be amplified during the management accounting change process and percolate throughout an organization. The authors identify five contested areas where the role of accounting amplifies the leadership dispute by unfolding its reach to other organizational actors. The leadership dispute can shape and reinforce a fragmented organization, with some organizational members creating convergent leader–follower relations while others divert and fragment with an increased turnover. This amplification can lead to unexpected outcomes of the change process in terms of how and by whom accounting is performed.

The authors propose the study of leadership and followership as an important but, to date, largely neglected theme in management accounting research.

In contrast to the prior management accounting literature, the paper departs from a leadership-centric and role-based approach and employs a co-constructionist and relational approach to leadership and followership to analyse management accounting change. In addition, it applies and extends Alvesson's (2019a) theory on “divergent relationalities” between the presumed leaders and followers. In doing so, the paper also adds to the leadership field by theorizing and integrating the situation of a leadership dispute in this novel theoretical framework.

Based on the contingency theory and resource-based view, this study develops and tests a moderated mediation model explaining the performance implications of the interaction between the accountants’ participation in strategic decision-making (APAR) and accounting capacity (ACAP) in promoting the use of management accounting systems (MAS) toward enhancing firm performance.

Using partial least squares structural equation modeling, the authors tested the proposed model and its hypotheses with survey data from 340 large Vietnamese firms.

The results indicate that (1) MAS act as the full mediator in the positive relationship between APAR and firm performance, and (2) ACAP positively moderates the effect of APAR on the use of MAS.

This study bridges the gap between accounting and strategic management literature by elucidating the mechanism by which the involvement of accountants in strategic issues improves the use of MAS toward enhancing firm performance and increases the current understanding of ACAP as a boundary condition for this mechanism.