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Although accounting and reporting visualisations (i.e. graphs, maps and grids) are often used to veil organisations’ untransparent actions, these practices perform irrespectively of their ability to represent facts. In this research, the authors explore accounting and reporting visualisations beyond their persuasive and representational purpose.

By building on previous research on the rhetoric of visualisations, the authors illustrate how the design of accounting visualisations within integrated reports engages managers in a recursive process of knowledge construction, interrogation, reflection and speculation on what sustainable value creation means. The authors articulate the theoretical framework by developing a longitudinal field study in International Fashion Company, a medium-sized company operating in the fashion industry.

This research shows that accounting and reporting visualisations do not only contribute to creating unclear and often contradicting representations of organisations’ sustainable performance but, at the same time, “open up” and support managers’ unfolding search for “sustainable value” by reducing its unknown meaning into known and understandable categories. The inconsistencies and imperfections that accounting and reporting visualisations leave constitute the conditions of possibility for the interrogation of the unknown to happen in practice, thus augmenting managers’ questioning, reflections and speculation on what sustainable value means.

This study shows that accounting and reporting visualisations can represent good practices (the authors are not saying a “solution”) through which managers can re-appreciate the complexities of measuring and defining something that is intrinsically unknown and unknowable, especially in contexts where best practices have not yet consolidated into a norm. Topics such as climate change and sustainable development are out there and cannot be ignored, cannot be reduced through persuasive accounts and, therefore, need to be embraced.

This paper draws on the case of a multinational energy company to explore the role played by management control systems (MCSs) in enacting governance policies at the local (subsidiary) level.

This research mobilizes the literature on governmentality to interpret MCSs as technologies of government that can be drawn upon to translate governance policies into practice. In particular, the authors discuss this process by interpreting “governance” as an epistemic object, that is an object that generates knowledge because of its inherent incompleteness and abstract nature.

The paper shows how MCSs act as technical objects insofar they attract, bind and engage local subsidiary managers in the generation of knowledge about governance policies (i.e. the epistemic object) set at the global level, thereby enacting these policies locally.

The findings have practical implications by showing how subsidiary managers engage with MCSs to translate and implement broader governance policies in their daily activities.

This research contributes to the accounting literature on governmentality by showing the role of MCSs as technologies that enact governance at the local level through the process of knowledge generation that these technologies enable. Such knowledge is triggered by the engagement between different participating subjects, attracted by MCSs in the attempt to define governance in practice.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the enabling role of accounting and reporting practices as discourses about sustainability unfold inside organizations. In particular, the authors investigate how managers attempt to connect the concept of “sustainability” to their specific experience, as they seek to make sustainability meaningful (i.e. filling it with unfolding meaning) through accounting and within particular discursive spaces.

The authors rely upon the case of LOGIC, a large international oil and gas company operating in more than 70 countries worldwide. The authors analyze the evolution of discourses concerning sustainability inside the company, as well as the changing accounting and reporting practices, with a particular focus on integrated reporting.

The authors show that accounting and reporting practices (such as integrated reporting within LOGIC) provide the conditions for “sustainability”—as a discursive concept—to become meaningful, while evolving themselves as they are attached to this concept. They do so by enabling individuals (the management team within LOGIC) to connect their diverse experiences and aspirations to the concept of sustainability. Rather than filling sustainability with stable meaning, the authors observed that individuals are attracted by the gaps left by accounting representations, leading to the development of new practices and unfolding meanings within specific discursive spaces.

Most of the literature on sustainability accounting and reporting practices concentrate on the need for these practices to mirror what companies do about sustainability. Differently, the authors add to the very few studies on “aspirational” reporting that have emphasized the enabling effects of the gap between what companies say and do about sustainability. The authors do so by demonstrating that accounting is “aspirational” not only because it stimulates corporate efforts toward an imaginary better future, but also because it attracts managers’ particular aspirations through its representational gap. The authors show that this gap enables meaningful connections between individuals (their particular experience and aspirations) and “sustainability,” bringing this concept into their specific discursive space and, thereby, leading to the emergence of new practices.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the way in which system dynamics (SD) can enhance some key success factors of the balanced scorecard (BSC) model and support decision-makers, specifically in analyzing and evaluating the results of hypothetical scenarios. Moreover, the paper aims to emphasize the role played by statistics not only in validating the SD-based BSC, but also in increasing managers’ confidence in the model reliability.

The paper presents a case study, developed according to an action research perspective, in which a three-step approach to the BSC implementation was followed. Specifically, the first step requires the development and implementation of a “traditional” BSC, which is refined and transformed into a simulation SD model in the second step. Last, the SD-based BSC is combined with statistics to develop policy making and scenario analysis.

The integration of BSC and SD modeling enables the development of a comprehensive approach to strategy formulation and implementation and, more importantly, provides a more reliable basis upon which to build and test sound cause-and-effect relationships, within a specific BSC. This paper exemplifies how an SD-based BSC can be used – and perceived reliable – to evaluate different scenarios and mutually exclusive policy effects in a multidimensional approach. In particular, this study illustrates how to forecast and depict trends for financial and non-financial indicators over the simulation period, with reference to three different scenarios.

This paper contributes to the ongoing debate on the BSC by exploring whether a combination of SD and statistics may enhance the BSC system’s advantages and facilitate its implementation process and use for decision-making and scenario analysis.

This study aims to develop a framework to systematize the emerging literature on integrated thinking and offers empirical insights on how integrated thinking has been practiced within an organization. The paper also introduces the contributions that compose the special issue “exploring integrated thinking in action: theoretical interpretations and evidence from the field” and outlines avenues for future research.

The paper critically reviews the literature on integrated thinking and proposes a framework that classifies prior studies into three areas, namely, integrated thinking and sustainable strategies; integrating thinking in practice; the concept and measures of integrated thinking. The study also provides an illustration of the ways in which integrated thinking has been adopted by a European energy company to shape and execute its purpose-driven strategy, as well as the benefits that have emerged. The paper uses the framework developed from the literature to introduce the contributions of the special issue and to suggest future research opportunities.

The study shows that while the literature on integrated thinking is still in its infancy, the evidence emerging from contemporary organizations supports empirical-driven research and stimulates a variety of theoretical and empirical contributions that will enable the academic debate to move forward.

The theoretical and practical insights offered by this study, together with those provided by the papers of this Meditari Accountancy Research special issue, will foster future research on integrated thinking. In particular, the framework developed in this paper may be drawn upon by researchers to plan new research projects on integrated thinking and its adoption within organizations.

The purpose of this paper is to outline an agenda for researching the relationship between technology-enabled networks – such as social media and big data – and the accounting function. In doing so, it links the contents of an unfolding area research with the papers published in this special issue of Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal.

The paper surveys the existing literature, which is still in its infancy, and proposes ways in which to frame early and future research. The intention is not to offer a comprehensive review, but to stimulate and conversation.

The authors review several existing studies exploring technology-enabled networks and highlight some of the key aspects featuring social media and big data, before offering a classification of existing research efforts, as well as opportunities for future research. Three areas of investigation are identified: new performance indicators based on social media and big data; governance of social media and big data information resources; and, finally, social media and big data’s alteration of information and decision-making processes.

The authors are currently experiencing a technological revolution that will fundamentally change the way in which organisations, as well as individuals, operate. It is claimed that many knowledge-based jobs are being automated, as well as others transformed with, for example, data scientists ready to replace even the most qualified accountants. But, of course, similar claims have been made before and therefore, as academics, the authors are called upon to explore the impact of these technology-enabled networks further. This paper contributes by starting a debate and speculating on the possible research agendas ahead.

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.

The paper explores the process of construction of the “accountable self”, particularly as this process engages with the spirituality of the self. This study examines the “space of accountability” within which the accountable self constructs itself as such and investigates how different accounts of the self are drawn upon in the making of this space, both defining and transcending it.

The paper relies upon archival material concerning accounting and accountability practices about the project for building the altar of St. Ignatius in the Church of Gesù, Rome, Italy (1691–1706). This study examines calculative and narrative accounts about the project from the perspective of the superintendent, who was the sole person accountable for the building works.

Whereas calculative accounts enabled the self to account for actions within the specific space of accountability of the project, narrative accounts opened up this space, providing for a testimony of actions and a gift of accountability towards future indefinite others. This process was prompted by the spirituality of the self and the narcissistic gratification of fulfilling this spirituality.

The paper adds to the literature on the accountable self and to theological perspectives into accountability. This study suggests exploring how different accounts of the self engage with each other through testimony, gift, narcissism and spirituality in the construction of the accountable self, providing for a “transcendent” space of accountability. This research also adds to studies on narrative accounts by showing that they are drawn upon alongside calculative accounts in the construction of the transcendent, accountable self.

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.

The purpose of this paper is to speculate on the potentials of the system dynamics methodology to contribute to the balanced scorecard (BSC) design and implementation by producing a detailed causal relationships model that links strategic and operational objectives in a more accurate and effective way.

The work is based on the methodological principles and the operational tools provided by the system dynamics methodology and the BSC framework.

One of the main areas that both the relevant literature and Kaplan and Norton identified as critical in developing the original BSC framework is related to the identification and the quantification of “causal relationships” across the BSC, and to the subsequent opportunity to use a mathematical‐computer model to test and simulate such assumptions and their impacts on strategy implementation. Such issues are addressed in this paper.

The paper provides information and consideration on how to model and assess causality and cause‐and‐effect relationships in BSC environments. Subsequently, it provides some reflections on the contribution of the system dynamics methodology for the design and implementation of the BSC.

The value of this paper is two‐fold: first, it shows that relying on system dynamics tools and methodological principles is possible to better define the concept of causality in BSC frameworks; second, it shows that by integrating system dynamics modelling principles and the BSC framework it is possible to develop a comprehensive approach to performance management and strategy formulation and strategy implementation.