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Accountants’ involvement in environmental and sustainability management has merely been investigated to date. With the continuous take-up of sustainability issues by companies and with the growing experience companies gain in dealing with this topic, this chapter raises the question whether accountants are involved in a way different than previously reported and if yes, what their role is in social accounting practice.

Based on 58 interviews with corporate practitioners, this chapter firstly explores the roles involved in the social accounting practice in companies which are considered to be leading in sustainability reporting in the United Kingdom and Germany. Secondly, the role of professional accountants is analysed from a power theory perspective.

The main findings suggest that professional accountants are partially involved in social accounting practice but mainly exert a gatekeeping role between sustainability managers and higher management.

Investigating the observed behaviour empirically can help improve social accounting. Should it turn out that the accountants have no other option but to act like gatekeepers, accounting education will play a major role in overcoming this deficiency in the pursuit of improved sustainability knowledge and performance. If, on the other hand, it is the defensive stance of accounting professionals and the fear of losing power in corporate structures which motivates them to act as gatekeepers, mechanisms to motivate them to cooperate should be researched.

The chapter empirically investigates and discusses the accountant’s contribution to sustainability information management. This can help overcome organisational challenges impeding companies to successfully implement sustainability measures.

There has been remained a supporting linkage between the sustainable performance and the green supply chain through quality management practices. However, the main objective or aim of this research study is to understand the green supply chain and its role in lean manufacturing and analyze its impact on the performance of Thailand’s garment industry, whereas there is a need to analyze the mediating role of lean manufacturing practices (LMP) and green supply management on environmental performance of garment industry. In this case, the data were assembled through a survey questionnaire, in which questions regarding LMP were asked. The selected sample size for this research study was 411 employees that belonged to garment firms in Thailand, in which 56.4% were men and 43.6% were women. The researchers analyzed the data through different techniques and procedures such as confirmatory factors analysis, structural equation modeling (SEM), discriminant validity and other related techniques. The results of the research indicated that there is a significant impact of 4.0 technologies on environmental performance, whereas both of these, the green and the lean management practices also play a significant mediating role, because all the hypothesis are accepted. Moreover, it is recommended for future researchers to use other techniques to analyze data.

This article develops Polanyi’s (2001) theme of harnessing the regulatory capacity of a social sphere by focusing on trust as an emotion for framing risk regulatory regimes. Using the global mining sector as its focus, it explores the role of trust in the regulation and corporate management of social and environmental risk.

Sociological perspectives on trust are employed to identify and analyze dynamics of trust in the mining industry. The article draws on data collected between 2004 and 2008 by way of participant observation, document analysis, and in-depth qualitative interviews with around 40 representatives of the mining industry, NGOs, and regulators. Trust-relationships are an example of harnessing the regulatory capacity of a social sphere, but they can also undermine regulatory effort where trust is abused. The effectiveness of trust-based regulation would be enhanced by sanctions for nonperformance that target corporate motivations and financial performance. This research focused on a selection of large, multinational mining corporations with a presence in Australia. Generalizations could not be made from this research about smaller mining entities or single-country or state-owned corporations.

A better understanding of corporate trust-building behaviors and motivations can help inform more effective regulatory strategy for improving corporate, social, and environmental impacts. This article contributes to the body of knowledge about the regulation of the social and environmental performance of the mining industry. This is important as many of the remaining accessible mineral deposits across the globe are in areas of environmental and social significance.

Issues concerning society are everybody's business. Therefore, individuals, larger or smaller groups, formal or informal entities, public or private firms, governmental or non-governmental organisations who are key stakeholders of society must always aspire to champion societal concerns. Society's welfare should be everybody's business. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) in a broad sense can be viewed as the relationship of organisations with society as a whole, and the need for organisations to align their values with societal expectations (Atuguba & Dowuona-Hammond, 2006). In reality, it is a set of standards by which organisations can impact their environment with the potential of creating sustainable development (Helg, 2007). It is critical that society educates everyone to be responsible. From all societal actors, universities are the ones educating the future elites of a country. What they teach and do not teach may make or break a nation's future and well-being. As noted by Dashwood and Puplampu (2010), there is a greater need for crafting a sustainable, strategic and mutually beneficial set of responsible actions in embracing the right approaches to CSR. According to them, such actions should emanate from a genuine recognition of, and attention to, economic, traditional, historical, as well as business arguments from the perspectives of the stakeholders and interest groups.

My purpose is to describe for strategic management scholars in Africa, particularly graduate students and new faculty members, dynamic analysis and its significance in the African context so as to assist in the study of dynamic phenomena.

I discuss various types and methods of dynamic analysis. Dynamic analysis has been used extensively in such fields as cognitive psychology, social psychology, and management in Western countries.

I illustrate the various dynamics by reviewing four illustrative studies. I also provide procedures for studying dynamics in the African context.

I discuss the strengths and limitations of dynamic analysis and suggest ways of maximizing its potential.

The technique is a source particularly for graduate students of strategy in Africa. They can use it to supplement other approaches in studying strategic management phenomena.

This chapter discusses a typology of dynamic analysis consistent with empirical or variable modeling approaches. The lack of such a typology in the context of Africa makes it a valuable contribution. Thus, it fills a contextual gap in the research methodology literature.

Environmental outlays are significantly increasing and will continue to increase as the world becomes more environmentally conscious and countries issue more extensive environmental laws and regulations. This chapter discusses the new global environmental initiatives (ISO 14000 environmental standards) and presents the results of a survey of a sample of Chief Financial Officers and Corporate Environmental Officers that provided information on environmental matters including corporate environmental costs, the use and importance of environmental audits, and the adoption of ISO 14000 environmental standards and their perceived benefits. The results of this study may provide insight to business, academia, government regulatory agencies, and accounting standard setters regarding environmental matters. The concepts and issues discussed herein may provide guidance to other countries that are considering addressing the challenges and opportunities of their own environmental regulations, laws, accounting standards, and environmental auditing.

Information and communications technology (ICT) offers enormous opportunities for individuals, businesses and society. The application of ICT is equally important to economic and non-economic activities. Researchers have increasingly focused on the adoption and use of ICT by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) as the economic development of a country is largely dependent on them. Following the success of ICT utilisation in SMEs in developed countries, many developing countries are looking to utilise the potential of the technology to develop SMEs. Past studies have shown that the contribution of ICT to the performance of SMEs is not clear and certain. Thus, it is crucial to determine the effectiveness of ICT in generating firm performance since this has implications for SMEs’ expenditure on the technology. This research examines the diffusion of ICT among SMEs with respect to the typical stages from innovation adoption to post-adoption, by analysing the actual usage of ICT and value creation. The mediating effects of integration and utilisation on SME performance are also studied. Grounded in the innovation diffusion literature, institutional theory and resource-based theory, this study has developed a comprehensive integrated research model focused on the research objectives. Following a positivist research paradigm, this study employs a mixed-method research approach. A preliminary conceptual framework is developed through an extensive literature review and is refined by results from an in-depth field study. During the field study, a total of 11 SME owners or decision-makers were interviewed. The recorded interviews were transcribed and analysed using NVivo 10 to refine the model to develop the research hypotheses. The final research model is composed of 30 first-order and five higher-order constructs which involve both reflective and formative measures. Partial least squares-based structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) is employed to test the theoretical model with a cross-sectional data set of 282 SMEs in Bangladesh. Survey data were collected using a structured questionnaire issued to SMEs selected by applying a stratified random sampling technique. The structural equation modelling utilises a two-step procedure of data analysis. Prior to estimating the structural model, the measurement model is examined for construct validity of the study variables (i.e. convergent and discriminant validity).

The estimates show cognitive evaluation as an important antecedent for expectation which is shaped primarily by the entrepreneurs’ beliefs (perception) and also influenced by the owners’ innovativeness and culture. Culture further influences expectation. The study finds that facilitating condition, environmental pressure and country readiness are important antecedents of expectation and ICT use. The results also reveal that integration and the degree of ICT utilisation significantly affect SMEs’ performance. Surprisingly, the findings do not reveal any significant impact of ICT usage on performance which apparently suggests the possibility of the ICT productivity paradox. However, the analysis finally proves the non-existence of the paradox by demonstrating the mediating role of ICT integration and degree of utilisation explain the influence of information technology (IT) usage on firm performance which is consistent with the resource-based theory. The results suggest that the use of ICT can enhance SMEs’ performance if the technology is integrated and properly utilised. SME owners or managers, interested stakeholders and policy makers may follow the study’s outcomes and focus on ICT integration and degree of utilisation with a view to attaining superior organisational performance.

This study urges concerned business enterprises and government to look at the environmental and cultural factors with a view to achieving ICT usage success in terms of enhanced firm performance. In particular, improving organisational practices and procedures by eliminating the traditional power distance inside organisations and implementing necessary rules and regulations are important actions for managing environmental and cultural uncertainties. The application of a Bengali user interface may help to ensure the productivity of ICT use by SMEs in Bangladesh. Establishing a favourable national technology infrastructure and legal environment may contribute positively to improving the overall situation. This study also suggests some changes and modifications in the country’s existing policies and strategies. The government and policy makers should undertake mass promotional programs to disseminate information about the various uses of computers and their contribution in developing better organisational performance. Organising specialised training programs for SME capacity building may succeed in attaining the motivation for SMEs to use ICT. Ensuring easy access to the technology by providing loans, grants and subsidies is important. Various stakeholders, partners and related organisations should come forward to support government policies and priorities in order to ensure the productive use of ICT among SMEs which finally will help to foster Bangladesh’s economic development.

In the current highly competitive market, most organizations are moving away from reactive and compliance-based to proactive environmental management. This proactive approach to environmental management calls for taking a strategic approach to adoption of green practices beyond an organization’s internal borders. In this respect, incorporating green practices into a firm’s supply chain has attracted interest of operations management scholar and practitioners. The influence of external pressures on the adoption of green supply chain management (GSCM) practices has been established in the literature. This research posits that the adoption of GSCM practices is also driven by a firm’s internal strategic factors including its key resources and competitive strategy. It also suggests that these direct effects are further mediated by the green strategies (GSs) adopted in companies. Theoretically, these relationships are supported by combining the institutional theory with the natural resource-based view. A structural equation modeling is applied to formulate and analyze the relationships and the mediating effect using a survey data collected from 139 ISO14001-certified manufacturers in Malaysia. The results verified the mediating effect of GS adoption on the relationship between internal and external strategic factors, and GSCM practices. This research has made an original contribution to knowledge by bridging the fields of strategic environmental management and GSCM.