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Focusing on the Agri-Food and Beverage sector, the paper investigates the direct effect of worldwide mandatory non-financial disclosure on several financial dimensions as well as its moderating effects on the relationship between sustainability and financial performance.

The authors performed fixed-effect regressions on a sample of 180 global listed companies, considering a period of eight years. The authors also tested the moderating effects of non-financial disclosure regulation on the relationship between sustainability and financial performance.

The authors found a positive direct impact of mandatory non-financial disclosure on Operating Return on Asset, Return on Equity and Return on Sales. The analysis also highlighted the negative moderating effects of non-financial reporting regulation on the relationship between sustainability issues and financial performance. As for the Cost of Debt, the authors found mixed results.

This study considers a short-term perspective focusing on a limited sample composed of companies playing a key role in the global agri-food system.

The paper identifies which financial performance dimensions are positively or negatively affected by mandatory non-financial disclosure. Accordingly, managers can rearrange corporate activities to deal with further reporting normative requirements concurrently preserving financial performances and fostering corporate sustainability.

This study recommends fostering mandatory non-financial disclosure to increase corporate transparency fostering the sustainability transition of the Agri-Food and Beverage industry.

The paper highlights global mandatory non-financial disclosure effects on financial performance considering a sector that is cross-cutting impactful on plural sustainability issues.

This paper aims to investigate whether being sustainable is also profitable for agri-food companies in the short-term.

The study analysed the impacts of sustainability multiple issues on one-year lagged return on assets, developing a longitudinal analysis focused on best and worst companies' samples for a timeframe of ten years. Notably, we performed OLS regressions on unbalanced panels data collecting overall 1,760 annual observations from 318 companies. Moreover, we examined the moderating effects of slack resources on the relationship between sustainability and the short-term firms' profitability.

The results show that the best sustainable companies usually improve future profitability. Conversely, the worst ones should prioritize efforts in specific initiatives (i.e. responsible products, eco-innovation, management and governance commitment to sustainability), which positively affect their profitability and compensate possible short-term financial losses due to CSR strategy execution and sustainable production/supply chain management. Finally, the study found mixed results regarding the moderating effects of slack resources on the scrutinized relationships.

The paper highlights the key environmental, social and governance aspects to be addressed for consolidating and enhancing the virtuous relationship between non-financial and financial performance, distinguishing between best and worst sustainability performers.

This study is among the first that decomposed sustainability in multiple micro aspects (i.e. sustainable strategy, products and processes) investigating the effects of each of them on the short-term agri-food firms' profitability.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how accounting and control practices contribute to the persistence of the multiple logics that characterise hybrid organizations, i.e. organizations that constantly incorporate elements from different institutional logics at the very core of their identity.

The authors draw on the literature regarding institutional logics and on studies exploring the enabling power of accounting to interpret the findings derived from a longitudinal case study of a hybrid organization operating in the field of brain-computer interface technology.

The study shows that the persistence of conflicting logics and innovation within hybrid organizations can be sustained through the mediating role of accounting and control practices. By engaging different interested parties within processes of innovation, these practices can establish complex interconnections between conflicting perspectives and their objects of concern. Consequently, accounting and control do not address a specific logic but instead contribute to lock different parties to their own logic, allowing them to engage and generate innovation while maintaining their diversity.

Whereas previous studies have explored mechanisms for keeping the multiple logics of hybrids separate or for reconciling them, the paper shows that conflicts between these logics do not need to be reduced but can be mediated to generate innovation. Additionally, the authors contribute to the literature on accounting “in action”, by illustrating the role of accounting and control practices as boundary objects that act within a broader “ecology of objects” through which innovation materializes in a context of enduring institutional pluralism.

This paper aims to explore if and how management control sysems (MCS) have a role in implementing sustainable strategies. In particular, the paper aims to investigate how MCS work in order to translate these strategies into action and how they should be modified when a strategic change in a sustainable direction occurs.

The research relies upon a deeply conducted case study, drawing evidence from documentary research and field research.

Relying upon the case of Procter & Gamble (P&G), the paper finds that integration with the traditional planning and monitoring systems, combination of both formal and informal controls, coordination across business units and decentralized structures are key‐factors for successful implementation of sustainability‐oriented strategies.

From a theoretical point of view, it has been observed that research in the field of social and environmental accounting has been mainly focused on social and environmental reporting, disclosure initiatives and their linkages to other attributes of performance, such as economic or financial outcomes. The paper contributes to developing a debate on the potential of MCS in embracing social and environmental issues as well as in producing social and environmental information useful for internal users in decision‐making processes.

This paper aims to review the latest management development across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting‐edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

When multi‐national giant Procter & Gamble nails its sustainability colors to the mast, it has to make sure its actions match its messages. Such is the reputation of P&G, and other globally‐known brand leaders, that merely paying lip service to such important issues is not an option. Not that they would want it to be. Although sustainable development was only set up in 1999 as one of the company's strategic objectives, these days the embeddedness of sustainability strategies and goals in P&G's business starts at the highest organizational levels and cascades via the various business units to every employee. In fact each employee is accountable for specific objectives and is required to contribute clearly to the achievement of overall goals.

The briefing saves busy executives and researchers' hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy‐to‐digest format.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the nature, roles and dynamics of change of management accounting systems (MAS), in processes of continuous organisational learning and transformation. By studying the interaction between the accounting (and finance) function and the implementation of a Six‐sigma initiative, as the engine for organisational change, the authors seek to uncover the potential of measurement‐based systems of management for aligning business processes with corporate strategies. Such systems sustain continuous processes of transformation by infusing organisational culture with financial and non‐financial metrics of accountability.

The research is based on a longitudinal case study in which one of the authors had the opportunity to exercise what Schein called the clinical perspective; i.e. combining the role of researcher with that of helper‐consultant. There is mutual interdependence in the relationship between the authors' theoretical framework and the authors' longitudinal case study. While, on the one hand, the case research contributed to the search for an institutional explanation of the evidence experienced and collected, on the other hand, the empirical data are illuminated by the theoretical insights gained from that framework.

After first discussing cultural change, the authors rely both on the “clinical” position of one of the authors as researcher/helper‐consultant and on the insights provided by Schein's work on organisational culture and Giddens' structuration theory to develop an institutional framework for interpreting the ways in which routinised systems of accountability bind the ongoing processes of cultural transformation across time and space.

Possible limitations are: the conceptualisation of organisational culture as a shared and institutional phenomenon does not take account of wider anthropological aspects (such as the influence of national culture); the role of helper‐consultant as well as researcher may have influenced some of the authors' interpretations; the authors' analysis does not consider macro‐economic variables; and only a small percentage of shop‐floor workers were interviewed.

The paper sheds light on the role of management accounting within organisational processes of transformation far beyond their mere visible enactment. As a result, the authors develop an institutional framework to interpret the linkages between the cognitive dynamics which characterise organisational culture (viewed as shared cognitive schemas) and the behavioural and structural modalities through which they are drawn upon and reproduced by organisational members.