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The purpose of this study is to contribute to the discussion surrounding the definition of accounting proposed by Carnegie et al. (2021a, 2021b) and further elaborated by Carnegie et al. (2023) from/under an institutionalist political-economy (IPE) based foundation and to specifically extend this approach to the arena of social and environmental accounting (SEA).

By adopting an IPE approach to SEA, this study offers a critique of the use of the notion of capital to refer to nature and people in SEA frameworks and standards.

A SEA framework based on the capabilities approach is proposed based on the concepts of human capabilities and global commons for the purpose of preserving the commons and enabling the flourishing of present and future generations.

The proposed framework allows the engagement of accounting community, in particular SEA researchers, with and contribution to such well-established initiatives as the Planetary Boundaries framework and the human development reports initiative of the United Nations Development Programme.

Based on the capability approach, this study applies Carnegie et al.’s (2023) framework to SEA. This new approach more attuned to the pursuit of sustainable human development and the sustainable development goals, may contribute to turning accounting into a major positive force through its impacts on the world, expressly upon organisations, people and nature.

Identity regulation is part of a management control package. Organizations regulate employees’ self-identity to influence their behaviors. The success of this regulation depends on its trade-off with employees’ work identities and personalities. Organizational discourse nurtures this dynamic and interactive process. We focus on the regulation of an (undesired) organizational identity that is born at the intersection of race/ethnicity, gender, sex and migrant discrimination in accounting-related positions. We aim to analyze how Latina accountants who migrate to Spain perceive that their triple status as Latina, women and migrants affects their careers as accountants and interpret whether this triple intersectional discrimination aims to create a Latina accountant’s self-identity.

This critical study follows a phenomenological approach to analyze the experiences of women born in Latin America who migrated to Spain to occupy accounting-related positions. A thematic analysis of their semi-structured interviews allowed us to examine the challenges faced by Latina accountants in their accounting careers in Spain.

Our interviewees' narratives display an internalization of, even resignation to, a self-identity that we label “Latina accountant identity.” This identity is based on explicit discrimination discourses that cause them to suffer from the intersection of racism, sexism and migrant conditions and is nurtured by the discourses of their senior managers, co-workers and subordinates.

To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to frame the regulation of an intersectional discriminatory identity that is used to control Latina accountants from the inside, acting on the triple condition of Latinas, women and foreigners, influencing their self-perceptions regarding work and personal lives.

The aim of this paper is to propose a basis upon which accounting reporting can be developed to reflect real values and the real economy. It aims to address the environmental considerations discussed in the UN debate (Bebbington and Unerman, 2020) and the concern for a “better life-world”, which is the theme of this special issue.

Addressing the task involves the application of the philosophy of pragmatic constructivism (which explains how people can relate to their reality in ways that lead to successful action) and the philosophical concept of the “good life” (which establishes the values to be pursued through action and so defines action success). Also, it outlines the necessary characteristics of measurement frameworks if they are to be effective in the development and control of human practices to achieve desired values.

This paper proposes a conceptual framework for guiding the measurement of how a sustainable good life has improved and/or deteriorated as a result of organisational activities. It outlines a system of concepts on basic and instrumental values for analysing the condition of maintaining a sustainable good life in real terms. This is related to the financial results and societal regulations to analyse and adjust controls according to the real economic goals. Also, it provides a system of value measurands to produce valid information about the development of a sustainable good life. The measurand makes accounting reporting reflect the conditions of the good life that constitute the real economy instead of merely the financial economy driven by shareholder capitalism. Providing tools to analyse whether the existing practices of business and social regulations promote or counteract the real economic goals of producing a sustainable good life means the measurement system proposed makes the invisible hand of the market visible.

The mechanism proposed to enable accounting reporting to reflect real values and the real economy is a new conceptual framework that will allow accounting to more fully realise its potential to contribute to a “better world”. In aiming to serve a sustainable good life, accounting reporting will inherently foster ethical social practices.

This paper aims to assess the factors that may explain the International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS) convergence, considering Hofstede’s cultural dimensions as the theoretical reference for the cultural approach proposed. Additional factors include countries’ contextual and macroeconomic characteristics.

Logistic and probit regression models were used to identify the factors that may explain the IPSAS (fully or adapted) use by countries, including 166 countries in this assessment (59 for those whose cultural dimensions are available).

The findings consistently indicate collectivism and indebtedness levels as explanatory factors, providing insights into cultural dimensions along with macroeconomic characteristics as a relevant factor of countries’ convergence to IPSAS.

There are different levels of IPSAS convergence by countries that were not considered. This aspect may hide different countries’ characteristics that may explain those options, which could not be distinguished in this paper.

As a result of this paper, the International Public Sector Accounting Standards Board may gain insights that can be applied within the IPSAS due process to overcome the main challenges when collaborating with national authorities to achieve a high level of convergence. This analysis may include how to accommodate countries’ cultural differences as well as their contextual and macroeconomic characteristics.

There is a trend of moving toward accrual-based accounting standards by countries. Because the public sector embraces a new culture following the IPSAS path, it is relevant to assess if there are cultural factors, besides contextual and macroeconomic characteristics, that may explain the countries’ convergence to those standards.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first cross-country analysis on the likely influence of cultural dimensions on IPSAS convergence as far as the authors’ knowledge.

This paper aims to critically examine the accounting and information systems literature to understand the changes that are occurring in the management accounting profession. The changes the authors are interested in are linked to technology-driven innovations in managerial decision-making and in organizational structures. In addition, the paper highlights research gaps and opportunities for future research.

The authors adopted a grounded theory literature review method (Wolfswinkel et al., 2013) to achieve the study’s aims.

The authors identified four research themes that describe the changes in the management accounting profession due to technology-driven innovations: structured vs unstructured data, human vs algorithm-driven decision-making, delineated vs blurred functional boundaries and hierarchical vs platform-based organizations. The authors also identified tensions mentioned in the literature for each research theme.

Previous studies display a rather narrow focus on the role of digital technologies in accounting work and new competences that management accountants require in the digital era. By contrast, the authors focus on the broader technology-driven shifts in organizational processes and structures, which vastly change how accounting information is collected, processed and analyzed internally to support managerial decision-making. Hence, the paper focuses on how management accountants can adapt and evolve as their organizations transition toward a digital environment.

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of computer-assisted language learning on cultural adaptation and language learning in non-traditional classroom settings.

The data of this study came from extended periods of observation, multiple rounds of semi-structured interviews and home visits. Using narrative inquiry, it analyzes an immigrant's journey of language learning and cultural adaptation within a virtual knowledge community.

The findings of this study reveal the profound impact of virtual knowledge communities on enhancing second language learning and facilitating cultural adaptation.

This study offers original insights by demonstrating the transformative power of virtual knowledge communities for the purpose of second language acquisition and cultural adaptation.

This paper aims to investigate the association between negative tone in annual report narratives and future performance in the UK context. Under the principle-based approach in the UK, managers tend to bias the tone of narrative reports upward, as the reporting regime is more flexible than the rule-based approach in the USA. Consequently, any negative disclosure not mandated by regulators conveys credible information about a firm’s prospects.

This paper uses a sample of UK FTSE all-share non-financial companies from 2010 to 2019. The authors use the textual-analysis approach based on Loughran and McDonald (2011)’s wordlist (LM) to measure the negative tone in UK annual reports.

The results show a significant negative association between negative tone and future performance. Moreover, our further analyses suggest that only the negativity in the executive section of the annual disclosures correlates significantly with future performance. In summary, this study suggests that negativity does matter under the principle-based approach and can be used as an indicator of future performance.

In contrast to the literature arguing that only positivity has the power to affect a firm’s outcomes under the principle-based approach, the authors provide new empirical evidence suggesting that negativity also matters within the UK context and can be used as an indicator for future performance. Also, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to identify which section of the annual report is more informative about a firm’s future performance.

The demand for long-term home care services has been increasing in Taiwan due to the significant growth of the older population. In order to understand the crucial roles that language and communication play in providing better long-term home care services in Taiwan, this study aims to adopt a gerontological sociolinguistic perspective to investigate how professional care workers communicate with older people in this context.

Interviews were conducted with 58 long-term home care workers to identify their communication accommodation strategies for older people, considering their health conditions (dementia), personalities (grumpiness), living status (loneliness) and general principles of long-term home care communication.

The study's findings provide practical insights for long-term home care workers to enhance their communication skills while interacting with older people.

The results could contribute to improving the quality of care services provided to older people and address their specific communication needs.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this paper is the first attempt to identify contextually specific communication accommodations to older people in existing literature of gerontological sociolinguistics that addresses language, communication and older age. The salience of the findings in this study can be further enhanced if they were applied in the development of training programs for future Taiwanese long-term home care workers.

The financial world of today is evolving at a rate that can be challenging to keep up with and comprehend due to developments in information and communication technology. When compared to a conventional disclosure, the eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL), which was named one of the top ten accounting technologies, has a clear advantage in reducing information asymmetry by providing interactive data disclosure. This study aims to examine whether forcing companies to adopt XBRL would cause them to prefer misclassifying income statement items as an alternative to more risky earnings management methods.

The study sample includes nonfinancial UAE companies listed on Dubai Financial Market and Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange from 2012 to 2019. Fixed effect and system General Method of Moments regressions were used to analyze the study data.

The study found that XBRL reporting resulted in lowering the quality of financial reporting as companies have a higher tendency to misclassify income statement items as earnings management mechanism.

The findings of this research can be used by stakeholders and practitioners in the UAE to better understand whether the use of XBRL is linked to the engagement of financial reporting manipulative practices. The findings of this study also inform policymakers and regulators about the consequences of companies formally adopting digital disclosure language in an effort to improve the quality of their reporting. Besides, the results offer guidance to regulators considering imposing XBRL usage regulations.

Limited number of studies have tested the association between XBRL mandatory adoption and misclassification of income statement items as an earnings management tool in the Gulf Cooperation Council region.

This paper illuminates our journey as accounting educators by exploring accounting as a technical, social and moral practice towards decolonising ourselves. It lays the foundations for decolonising the higher education curriculum and the consequences for addressing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

This paper focuses on the potential to foster a space for praxis by adopting dialogism-in-action to understand our transformative learning through Jindaola [pronounced Jinda-o-la], a university-based Aboriginal knowledge program. A dialogic pedagogy provided the opportunity to create a meaningful space between us as academics, the Aboriginal Knowledge holder and mentor, the other groups in Jindaola and, ultimately, our accounting students. Since Jindaola privileged ‘our way’ as the pedagogical learning process, we adopt autoethnography to share and reflect on our experiences. Making creative artefacts formed the basis for building relationships, reciprocity and respect and represents our shared journey and collective account.

We reveal our journey of “holding to account” by analysing five aspects of our lives as critical accounting academics – the overarching conceptual framework, teaching, research, governance and our physical landscape. In doing so, we found that Aboriginal perspectives provide a radical positioning to the colonial legacies of accounting practice.

Our journey through Jindaola contemplates how connecting with Country and engaging with Aboriginal ways of knowing can assist educators in meaningfully addressing the SDGs. While not providing a panacea or prescription for what to do, we use ‘our way’ as a story of our commitment to transformative change.