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The purpose of this paper is to focus on carbon accounting as one aspect of accounting for impacts on the environmental capital and to detail the “convergence” process between two emergent corporate carbon management accounting approaches within a multinational company. In contrast to the reporting stakeholder and regulatory focus, company-internal issues of carbon accounting have so far rarely been investigated in depth. Based on a qualitative analysis of this in-depth case study, questions about what could be considered an effective carbon management accounting system are raised.

The research has been conducted with an in-depth case study, using participant observation (Spradley, 1980). The authors follow a pragmatic research approach, and the proposal of Malmi and Granlund (2009) “to create theories useful for practice is to solve practical problems with practitioners and synthesize the novel solutions to a more general form”.

This case study demonstrates that it is possible to connect two corporate carbon management accounting approaches focusing on products and the organization into a combined carbon management accounting system. This has potential impact in making carbon management accounting in organizations leaner, and more efficient in terms of performance measurement and external communication.

This research is based on a single case study, and more case studies in different industries could highlight further practical implementation difficulties and approaches to overcome.

This paper unveils that different carbon management accounting approaches can emerge in parallel in the same corporation. The paper discusses possibilities and challenges to converge them in terms of methodology (emission factors for example) and/or in terms of information systems, on which the calculations are based.

This is, to our knowledge, the first case study of an organization explicitly acknowledging the existence of multiple emerged carbon management accounting approaches and trying to make sense of them in a convergence process to create an overarching carbon accounting system.

Capitalism as a concept is founded on “free economy” guided by a free price system and free access to markets. Many of the ills facing present day society such as unemployment, poverty, rising disparities of income, malnutrition, high polluted environment are getting increasingly linked to this corporate philosophy. Alternatives such as social business enterprises have been suggested and practiced by some of the enlightened entrepreneurs. This paper examines the tenets of social business, which advocates enhancing values to society, and the social benefit to all the stakeholders.

This is an exploratory study and presents the origin, the rationale of the development of the strategic business model and its implementation. The model, based on the philosophy of social business, has been developed and practiced by Grameen Danone Foods Limited. The study has been conducted entirely on the basis of information and data available in the public domain.

The findings show an encouraging contribution towards enhancing social benefits to society. These are visible in meeting the needs of the children suffering from malnutrition, in the generation of employment and providing a rare dignity to the poor of the poorest. The shortfall in business results is traced to missing economy of scale of operations.

Social business is a new and a bold concept. It has faced many hurdles in its journey to meet objectives. The solutions it has discovered are sure to benefit many researchers, entrepreneurs, social‐welfare oriented societies, non‐profit organizations, national planners, regulators and society‐leaders.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the new opportunities that offers Africa to companies. Groups working in the bank, telecommunication and petroleum sectors know Africa’s attractiveness for a long time. However, food companies are now more and more interested in this continent too, especially thanks to key factors: a high growing gross domestic product, an emerging middle-class, a high birth rate […] Danone is an interesting case of this phenomenon. The company which is one of the main worldwide player in the food market decided to go into mergers and acquisitions in Africa since the 2000s; its strategy and its results will be analyzed.

General review.

It is shown that Africa brings new markets and revenue sources to companies. As a first mover, companies can take a competitive advantage over competitors in developing their activities in a new growing market. However, before entering Africa, companies must collect relevant information and have a strong strategy. In fact, some countries of this continent are still instable; that is why, companies have to be careful before investing in one of them. Additionally, the paper reveals that the first key to success in Africa in the food industry is to adapt products to local needs, culture and way of life.

Africa is still a relatively untapped market, and mergers and acquisitions in Africa represent a promising opportunity for companies that want to expand their activities, and the current trends predict a great development of investments in Africa.

To provide a review of the winning case study from the executive development category of EFMD's Excellence in Practice Awards, 2013.

An independent review of the winning case.

Uncertainty may have become a common aspect of business life, particularly in recent years, but can such disruption transform the modern corporate culture of targets, measures and key performance indicators (KPI)? Franck Riboud, CEO of Danone thinks that it can. He proposes that Danone can only compete with big name competitors such as Nestlé, Unilever and CocaCola by “thinking outside the box”, and thus leveraging the “benefit of doubt”.

Provides insight for practitioners into a learning and development initiative of proven impact.

The aim of this paper is to present an analytical narrative of the construction of the Brazilian market of functional yogurt, highlighting the role of Danone as an institutional entrepreneur.

After putting together a theoretical basis from business studies and institutional economics, the paper explores factual evidence of strategic moves by dairy firms in Brazil.

Danone, despite being a second mover, has been able to effectively make use of new values and collective concerns regarding food functionality to create a favourable institutional set in which to operate. Other firms have not been able to challenge its position in the market, simply abiding by the concepts and values created by Danone.

On the one hand, case studies based on traditional economic theories usually approach markets with supply and demand adjustment tools or taking technology as exogenous and the sole determinant of the existence of a market. On the other hand, traditional business theories highlight an individual entrepreneur as the only relevant object of analysis. This study offers an alternative guideline to study markets with creative players that craft not only new physical products or directly delivered services, but also concepts and ideas. Studies of other markets or similar markets in different countries can benefit from its insights.

The functional yogurt market in Brazil has not previously been object of academic research, and the combined framework of analysis in this study may offer guidance for other market studies.

Publics are becoming responsible customers that urge firms to improve society. By using social media, corporate social responsibility (CSR) actions could influence organization’s commitment and e-reputation. The purpose of this paper is to look at the influence on e-reputation of communication strategies (i.e. corporate ability and CSR) on social media.

Four international companies (Danone, Renault, Orange and BNP Paribas) were studied and a content analysis was performed: Leximancer for the social media content (between 25 and 50 pages for each company) on a six-month period; and Social Mention for the measurement of e-reputation.

Results show that there is a link between CSR communication strategies and e-reputation. More precisely, by using a corporate ability strategy (focus on product quality or innovation R & D), a company can increase its e-reputation better than on a common CSR communication strategy.

This study is based on only four companies (from four different industries) and would profit from a larger base for analysis. Second, the content the authors analyzed was generated by the company on their own social media.

This exploratory study is one of the first to look at the influence of CSR communication strategies on e-reputation and tries to see how companies’ action on social media can change the way they are perceived by their customers. It completes the current literature by defining how CSR communications strategies should be declined for in order to influence customers.

The research objectives of this chapter are threefold. First, we explore what is the current status of corporate water accounting tools and methodologies. Second, we develop a framework for analyzing corporate water accounting and reporting. Third, we investigate what French CAC 40 companies account for and report in relations to the water challenge.

We collected annual and sustainability reports from all CAC 40 companies as well as their water Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) responses when available. We also collected all publically available corporate water accounting methodologies to assess the international water accounting field. We coded the data according to our designed framework via qualitative data analysis software.

Although water is seen as equally important to climate change (Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA), 2009), French multinationals have a very immature reporting on this topic. Most still do not report to the water disclosure questionnaire of CDP in 2014 and rely on basic figures such as global water consumption. We analyzed the multiple water accounting, reporting, and risk assessment frameworks that have mushroomed since 2000, and question the impact of this fragmented field on the maturity of the water performance reporting by French companies.

The developed framework for analysis of water reporting can be used for sustainability teaching at university level.

We developed the first comprehensive analytical framework for water corporate reporting assessment. Moreover, this research is the first comprehensive study of water reporting in Europe. We therefore contribute to extend our comprehension of corporate maturity in water stewardship and water performance reporting.