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Although companies are increasingly embracing the sustainability discourse in their external reporting and disclosures, little is known about how management control systems support sustainability within organizations. This is unfortunate, given the important role that properly designed Sustainability Control Systems (SCS) may play in helping firms to better face their social and environmental responsibilities. Starting from these premises, the aim of this essay is twofold. On the one hand, we present a review of the emerging stream of research on sustainability and management control mechanisms, in order to identify and discuss the link between the two. On the other hand, we try to illustrate the main unaddressed issues in this literature as a premise to exploring one possible way to advance research in this area. Specifically, we make a call for a more holistic approach to the study of SCS, which considers also their organizational and cultural dimensions in addition to their technical properties. A framework for informing future work on the topic is proposed, based on the concept of ‘control package’ (Malmi & Brown, 2008; Sandelin, 2008) complemented with notions from the complementarity-based approach developed in organizational economics (Grandori & Furnari, 2008; Milgrom & Roberts, 1995). By enhancing our understanding on how SCS operate as a package, the application of our framework should allow researchers to develop better theory of how to design a range of controls to support organizational sustainability objectives, control sustainability activities, and drive sustainability performance.

Organizations’ increasing concern for environment shows the interest in appropriate mechanisms that account for relevant flows of environment-related information. Today managers and researchers are promoting environmental management accounting (EMA) systems mechanisms as a means to incorporate the full spectrum of ecological data into day-to-day business decisions and foster green management execution. However implementation remains a challenge and many of the difficulties are associated with conceptual and practical problems in integrating ‘green’ information and providing guidance on effective implementation. In this context academics might investigate on further explanations on how to achieve excellence in both environmental and financial performance. Hence this chapter substantiates the need for more theoretical and empirical studies on EMA practices and proposes avenues for future research.

We review the growing body of EMA research to inform the reader of what has been studied to date and indicate the necessity for further investigation. In addition, we suggest areas for future research.

Our synthesis highlights the relevant aspects of EMA examined in prior studies. The review reveals unexplored facets that need to be investigated to complement existing knowledge. In particular researchers might explore the concept of environmental performance and the application of different forms of EMA within organizations. Moreover academics have the opportunity to further examine the role of EMA mechanisms in companies that do not pursue environmental results for economic benefits.

The chapter sheds some light on EMA literature and emphasizes the opportunities that new theoretical developments and appropriate research designs offer in the investigation of the remaining gaps in the literature.

The following is an introductory profile of the fastest growing firms over the three-year period of the study listed by corporate reputation ranking order. The business activities in which the firms are engaged are outlined to provide background information for the reader.

This chapter investigates the awareness of consumers to the water supply chain and if the introduction of water labelling information increases the degree of accountability. This research examines how fresh water can be traded as a direct physical entity or indirectly as part of the supply chain of a product. With greater pressure put on finite global resources, demand for this natural commodity is slowly overtaking supply. Fresh water is essential to life and its equitable management is critical in protecting the long-term survival of the World’s inhabitants.

This research uses a case study basis for the research undertaken and analyses what factors business decision-makers consider when making their choices. A bookshop has been used as the business context for this investigation. The research is based on a qualitative methodology and uses semi-structured interviews to gather the data. The findings indicate that water awareness is low amongst consumers and that water labelling information whilst being endorsed by consumers would only yield modest changes in buying behaviour patterns.

This research has been gathered using a small sample of the population, but in order to draw general conclusions it is recommended that the study be extended to include a variety of organisations located in different countries that are motivated by profit and not for profit objectives.

This chapter discusses the Maldives information culture as observed and defined from the results of a research project undertaken as a Master of Philosophy at Curtin University in Australia. A survey of one rural Maldives community and one urban Maldives community collected data on their information use, access and awareness. Additional qualitative in-depth interviews with key information stakeholders in the Maldives sought supplementary information on the prevailing information situation. We present a conceptual model of the Maldives information culture including seven key elements: indigenous knowledge, ICTs, information literacy, research and publication, libraries and information services, mass media and information policies. The Maldives information culture is ‘paperless’, not in the modern online sense, but more in terms of the Maldives population's high reliance on verbal information interchange for their everyday information needs. In the Maldives, broadcast media and verbal information exchange predominate over print media. In the Maldives, reading as a leisure activity is present to some degree, but reading as an intellectual activity is limited. Libraries are not commonly used as an information source. Adoption of ICTs is swift and promising. However, even if the Maldives population is literate in the local language, a significant group lacks the English language literacy to benefit from the online information environment. There are no major differences in the use of information between the rural and urban community; the difference is in the level of access to information sources and the respondents' information literacy skills.

Dynamic predictions of financial distress of the firms have received less attention in finance literature rather than static prediction, specifically in Malaysia. This study, therefore, investigates dynamic symptoms of the financial distress event a few years before it happened to the firms by using neural network method. Cox Proportional Hazard regression models are used to estimate the survival probabilities of Malaysian PN17 and GN3 listed firms. Forecast accuracy is evaluated using receiver operating characteristics curve. From the findings, it shown that the independent directors’ ownership has negative association with the financial distress likelihood. In addition, this study modeled a mix of corporate financial distress predictors for Malaysian firms. The combination of financial and non-financial ratios which pressure-sensitive institutional ownership, independent director ownership, and Earnings Before Interest and Taxes to Total Asset shown a negative relationship with financial distress likelihood specifically one year before the firms being listed in PN 17 and GN 3 status. However, Retained Earnings to Total Asset, Interest Coverage, and Market Value of Debt have positive relationship with firm financial distress likelihood. These research findings also contribute to the policy implications to the Securities Commission and specifically to Bursa Malaysia. Furthermore, one of the initial goals in introducing the PN17 and GN3 status is to alleviate the information asymmetry between distressed firms, the regulators, and investors. Therefore, the regulator would be able to monitor effectively distressed firms, and investors can protect from imprudent investment.

The chapter highlights some of the challenges of research on supplementary education, and indicates ways in which the challenges were tackled in one particular study on Chongqing Municipality, China.

The Chongqing research investigated the determinants of demand for shadow education by Grade 9 students, using a mixed-methods design. A questionnaire was used to collect data from students and parents on various background details and on the nature of the tutoring that they or their children had received. Interviews of a smaller number of respondents provided qualitative data that supplemented and illuminated the quantitative responses.

Different methodological decisions may have different implications. The sampling strategies in the study limited the generalizability but increased the feasibility of the fieldwork and comparability of findings. The top-down strategy of gaining access secured high response rates in the surveys, but to some extent decreased some participants’ willingness to provide information on gray areas. Interviews generated deep and detailed data, but some sensitive topics were intentionally avoided. Informal chats with note taking were constrained in depth and breadth by random time slots and venues, and some details were difficult to record. However, the approach expanded the horizons and facilitated the triangulation of information.

Discussion focuses on collection of data, and stresses the importance of cultural, social, and economic contexts. The chapter may be seen as a case study that provides insights into methods for researching forms of supplementary education. Methodological lessons from the fieldwork in Chongqing have wider relevance, particularly in settings where regular teachers provide extra private classes.

In Virginia, former Gov. L. Douglas Wilder accused the state’s library agency of racism for “its slow pace in processing and publicly presenting records from his tenure as the nation’s first elected Black governor” (Associated Press, 2020). The State Librarian responded that this was just a lapse in protocols and framed it as a budget issue and staff turnover. However, “Library of Virginia has been processing papers from his gubernatorial successors before finishing work on his” (Associated Press, 2020). Recently, the Alabama State Department of Archives and History acknowledged their participation in systemic racism, epistemicide, and their history of privileging White voices over those of Alabama African-Americans.

Epistemicide is the killing, silencing, annihilation, or devaluing of a way of knowing (Patin, Sebastian, Yeon, & Bertolini, 2020). Conceptualization and analytic application of epistemicide has an established tradition in a number of social science fields, but information scientists have only recently acknowledged epistemicide (Oliphant, 2021; Patin et al., 2020; Patin, Sebastian, Yeon, Bertolini, & Grimm, 2021). Building from our recent identification of the existence of epistemicide within the IS field (Patin et al., 2020), this work challenges the information field to become an epistemologically just space working to correct the systemic silencing of certain ways of knowing.

This chapter examines the four types of epistemic injustices—testimonial, hermeneutical, participatory, and curricular—occurring within libraries and archives and argues for a path forward to address these injustices within our programs, services, and curricula. It looks to digital humanities and to reevaluations of professional standards and LIS education to stop epistemicide and its harms. This chapter demonstrates how to affirm the power and experience of Black lives and highlight their experiences through the careful acquisition, collection, documentation, and publishing of relevant historical materials. Addressing epistemicide is critical for information professionals because we task ourselves with handling knowledge from every field. There has to be a reckoning before the paradigm can truly shift; if there is no acknowledgment of injustice, there is no room for justice.

The chapter shows how globalization and the IFRSs have affected the development of financial accounting and reporting in Estonia. This is interpreted through institutional theory.

The theoretical framework takes into account the prior papers published using institutional theory for defining pressures affecting the development of financial reporting model. The discussion part is presented in three sub-sections. Coercive institutional pressure is analyzed using Estonian accounting legislation from 1990–2012 and normative pressure by focusing on the impact of Big 4 audit companies in the Estonian context. The authors also give an overview of mimetic institutional pressures. As a methodological technique literature review and document analysis are used.

In the context of coercive institutional pressure the development of accounting legislation in Estonia has been mostly influenced by the IFRSs and European Union. In the light of recent events it seems that Estonia has the opportunity to follow its own way deciding which accounting principles should be applied to SMEs. Mimetic institutional pressure affecting Estonian accounting system is International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), which practices Estonian Accounting Standards Board (EASB) copies. Normative institutional pressures influencing the development of the Estonian accounting system are the Big 4 audit firms.

Although using institutional theory to interpret the development of financial reporting framework is not new its application is underexplored in the context of post-Soviet countries such as Estonia. The chapter potentially contributes to the accounting reforms evidence in emerging economies.