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This study examines whether the 38 electric utility firms owning the 110 plants targeted by the 1990 Clean Air Act (CAA) made adequate pollution disclosures to inform the stakeholders whether they met the pollution emission requirements of the Act by the start of its first phase. First, it evaluates pollution emissions of the targeted plans at the start of the first phase of the Act, i.e. 1995. Then, it evaluates whether pollution disclosures of these firms improved leading up to the first phase of the Act. This evaluation is done by comparing pollution disclosures for the start of the first phase, i.e. 1995, with the year the CAA was enacted, i.e. 1990. Pollution emission data are obtained from the Department of Energy and from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and pollution disclosure data for 1989, 1990 and 1995 are obtained from the annual reports and 10Ks. A specifically designed content analysis technique is used to categorize pollution disclosures.

The pollution emissions results indicate that 1995 emissions are significantly lower than 1990 emissions. On an individual plant basis, the results, however, indicated that some plants reduced emissions while others used the permit system. The pollution disclosures results indicate that the 1995 pollution disclosure are comparatively lower than 1990 disclosures. The reason for high disclosures for 1990 could have been to protect the firms against potential legal cases if the requirements were not met. Once the fears of legal actions subsided, pollution disclosures were probably reduced. Lack of consistency and adequacy in pollution disclosures, however, make it difficult for stakeholders to properly evaluate their future risks.

Strategy scholars have theorized that a firm's strategic leaders play an important role in firm dynamic capabilities (DCs). However, little research to date has studied how leaders shape the development of DCs. This inductive theory-building study sheds new light on the multilevel architecture of DCs by uncovering that the three core DCs – sensing, seizing, and reconfiguring – operate through distinct individual, group, and organizational processes. Further, the role of strategic leadership is critical as organizational processes create DCs only when they are purposefully designed by firms' strategic leaders to enable change and opportunity pursuit. Whether strategic leaders design processes for change and opportunity pursuit, in turn, reflects the extent to which they view change as positive and desirable. Our insights about the role of strategic leaders' positive attitude toward change as an important aspect of firm DCs uncover new interconnections between strategic leadership, organizational design, and the micro-foundations of DCs. Collectively our findings about the role of positive attitude toward change, the purposeful design of processes for change, and the varying manifestations of these processes at different levels of analysis reveal the coupling of strategic and organizational processes in enabling strategic dynamism and change.

This study analyses the scope of social and environmental reporting from the perspective of integrating it in financial reporting and comments on a new approach regarding the presentation of social and environmental information in the annual reports from Romanian companies’ perspective.

A literature review introduces and justifies the second part of the research. The latter is organised as an exploratory study based on interviews. It presents the current state of Romanian companies’ availability for reconsidering financial reporting from the perspective of corporate social responsibility.

While social and environmental involvement of Romanian companies is at an early stage, there is a basis for future development of corporate reporting by addressing social and environmental aspects. We noticed that companies have the tendency of responding rather to a mandatory framework than a voluntary one.

The limitations of the research are linked to the study population. The small number of Romanian companies that publicly manifest interest for social responsibility determined the choice of a qualitative instead of a quantitative research.

The exploratory study based on the case of Romania accompanies the present state of non-financial versus financial reporting in order to highlight measurable and non-measurable, but relevant, information to be considered in a future reporting framework.

The study advances new lines in accounting research by confronting the national and international perspectives of social and environmental reporting. Debates and arguments on the research results add value and utility to the research.

Technological advances and increasing competition are forcing organisations to monitor their performance ever more closely. The concept of the balanced scorecard offers a systematic and coherent method of performance measurement that in particular concentrates on assessing present performance in the light of an organisation’s strategy and takes into account the importance of the various policy aspects. In this paper we study the extent to which the concept contributes to the desired improvement of performance. To this end, we examine the motives for adopting the concept and the decision-making process around this adoption. We study the functioning of the balanced scorecard as a means to control performance, assuming that its functioning is linked to an organisation’s problems and is influenced by other control instruments used. This is why we have done case research.

The diffusion of integrated reporting as a practice has stimulated an academic debate about whether integrated reporting has the potential to advance sustainability. The International Integrated Reporting Framework, which guides the preparation of integrated reports, focuses specifically on providers of financial capital and does not refer explicitly to sustainability in a significant way. But there is evidence that integrated reporting has enhanced the provision of sustainability disclosures. This chapter scrutinizes academic research on integrated reporting, focusing on sustainability published from 2010 to 2021. First, we synthesize arguments about aspects of integrated reporting that inhibit the advancement of sustainability as well as those that help advance sustainability. Then we explain a two-pronged approach for improving the sustainability orientation of any future connected reporting framework. The first one relates to building on the current strengths of integrated reporting for advancing sustainability. The second approach concerns tackling the obstacles to promoting sustainability through integrated reporting identified in the literature. This chapter also provides important insights for future research in the field.

The current study aims to advance the understanding of the role of performance measurement systems (PMS) in the improvement of companies’ performance, as well to contribute to the limited knowledge of this issue in transition economies. In order to do so, performance effects of PMS are examined, testing both dominant approaches: the performance measurement diversity view and performance measurement alignment view.

A survey using questionnaire was conducted on a sample of large- and medium-sized manufacturing companies in Serbia.

The results of the research support the performance measurement diversity view, as we found evidence that a broader scope PMS is positively associated with performance. However, we also found partial support for the influence of the strategy–PMS alignment on performance.

This study investigates the complex mechanism of PMS effect on performance in a particular context – the transition economy. Moreover, this study represents a pioneering attempt to evaluate the state of performance measurement practice in Serbia and is one of the rare studies of this type on transition economies.

An environmental accident at a Placer Dome mine triggered a contagion effect across the Canadian mining industry. The decline in equity prices was moderated by prior disclosure of a high-level commitment to environmental management. Investors appear to interpret this information as a signal of expertise in the management of environmental risks and costs. The same companies are positioned to make the most credible financial disclosures about environmental management, and yet the evidence suggests that financial disclosures themselves have a negative impact on company value. There may be a miscommunication between investors and analysts on the one hand and mining company executives on the other, which could explain why mining company managers report their companies’ shares are undervalued.