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This paper aims to investigate various institutional pressures driving the adoption and implementation of a new risk management system; enterprise risk management (ERM).

The implementation of ERM-related practices is analysed based on an institutional framework and drawing on empirical evidence from multiple sources in ten large/medium-sized insurance companies. This paper focuses on extra-organisational pressures exerted by political, social and economic institutions on insurance companies which drove the adoption decision.

It was found that different change agents have taken part in the decision to introduce new risk management system as a part of ERM implementation process. Further, the institutional pressures, coercive, mimetic and normative, were found to differ in character and strength over different intervals of time in relation to the adoption of ERM. Companies that adopted ERM early were mostly driven by internal strategic drivers, whereas the recent adoption decision was more driven by coercive and mimetic pressures. Thus, evidence of divergence between insurance companies was found.

The findings have implications for policy makers, regulatory agencies and innovation developers. ERM was considered not only as a necessity but also as a value added to the insurance companies under study. Thus, regulators and innovation developers should survey main players in any specific organisational field to understand their views before issuing new compulsory regulations or developing innovations. They also need to consider exploring companies’ experiences with ERM, which can provide a basis for the development of strengthened and more informative regulatory ERM frameworks. This will support a faster and easier understanding and implementation of ERM framework hindered by the confusions companies may face when considering the complicated/changing regulatory and risk requirements.

This study extends the scope of institutional analysis to the risk management field, particularly ERM and to the explanation of how different institutions affect the decision to move towards ERM and modify the risk management rules applied within the organisational environment. It looks not only at convergences but also divergences associated with the period of time when ERM adoption decision was made. Thus, it develops a processual view of change.

This paper aims to examine the adoption of conventional and emergent analysis techniques in Strategic Investment Decision-Making (SIDM) practices in large UK manufacturing companies. It aims to update the current knowledge on SIDM practices in large manufacturing companies. The research question underlying this study: Are recently developed analysis techniques (i.e. those that aim to integrate strategic and financial analyses) being used to evaluate strategic investment projects?

The research evidence underpinning this study was made up of primary and secondary data, quantitative and qualitative. Firstly, a survey consisting of a mailed formal standard questionnaire was conducted where each respondent is required to answer the same questions based on the same system of coded responses. Secondly, qualitative data was collected using the annual reports of selected companies. Disclosures were used as supplementary source of information using the explanatory notes and parenthetical disclosures accompanying companies’ financial reporting. Sources for these disclosures included management discussions, analyses of company strategy and risk and forward-looking reports regarding future performance and growth opportunities (such as mergers and acquisitions activities). Accordingly, companies’ disclosures were used in this study as an alternative method to semi-structured interviews to collect qualitative data. More recently, companies such as Rio Tinto have prepared strategic annual reports for 2017 against the UK Corporate Governance Code (version 2016).

The choice and use of financial analysis techniques and risk analysis techniques depend on the type of project being evaluated. Decision makers in large UK companies do not appear to use emergent analysis techniques widely. Pre-decision control mechanisms have significant influence on SIDM practices. This includes the changes of internal and external contextual factors, including organisational culture, organisational strategies, financial consideration, comprising formal approval governance mechanisms, regulatory and other compliance policies interact with companies’ internal control systems. Companies incorporate non-financial factors alongside quantitative analysis of strategic investments opportunities. Energy efficiency and carbon reduction are key imperatives of companies’ environmental management. These factors viewed by decision makers as significant factors relevant for compliance with legislation as well as maintaining companies’ legitimacy issues, sustainable business, experience with new technology and improved company image.

High risk, ambiguity and complexity are key characteristics embedded in SIDM processes. Macroeconomic issues remain crucial factors in scanning and screening investment opportunities, as reported by this study. The early stage of SIDM processes requires modelling under macroeconomic scenarios and assumptions of both internal and external parameters. Key assumptions include: projections of economic growth; commodity prices and exchange rates, introduction of technological and productivity advancements; cost and supply parameters for major inputs. SIDM practices rooted on comprehensive knowledge and experience of the industry and markets to draw subjective judgements about the riskiness of prospective projects, but these are rarely formalized into their SIDM processes. Findings of this study, however, remain within the context of UK companies. This study has its own limitations due to its time, location, respondents and sample selection, the size and the sector of the selected companies and questions addressed. Findings of this study raise a call for future research to examine SIDM processes in different settings to explore the relative impact of various organisational control mechanisms on SIDM practices. Also, to examine the influence of contextual factors (such as national culture, political, legal and social factors) on organisational control mechanisms. SIDM practices and processes have received significant attention from researchers, yet there is a lack of evidence in the literature about how companies approach strategic decision-making regarding divestments of some of their strategic investments. This type of strategic decision-making is not less important than other types of SIDM practices.

SIDM practices reflect the art and science of steering and controlling organisational resources to achieve a desired strategy. To understand the factors that shape SIDM practices and align them to organisational strategy, more attention is required to the choice and design of pre-decision controls and to the important role of strategic management accounting tools over the more traditional financial analysis techniques that have formed the focus of much prior empirical research.

Key environmental issues viewed by decision makers as significant factors relevant for compliance with legislation as well as maintaining companies’ legitimacy issues and company image.

Despite their perceived importance in this study, quantitative accounting controls may fail to connect with the kind of investment decision-making required to bring strategic success. Indeed, it has been widely noted that financial evaluation techniques are inadequate for assessing strategic investment proposals; they can only function as a guideline, as SIDM practices involve so many uncertainties, risks and judgements. A key insight from this study is that the achievement of integration between the firm’s strategic investment projects and the overall organizational strategy forms a critical pre-decision control on managerial behaviour at an early stage in SIDM practices. As many strategic investment decisions are one-off, non-repeatable decisions, the information needed to support their evaluation is likely to be similarly unique. Sound SIDM practices require the support of a large amount of varied information, a significant proportion of which is collected and analysed prior to potential capital investment projects being considered, such as information related to strategic goal setting, risk-adjusted hurdle rates and the design of appropriate organisational decision hierarchies.

Activity‐based costing (ABC) data have the potential to inform a wide range of management decisions. Recently the term Activity‐based management (ABM) has emerged to describe any application of ABC data, but there is currently no framework which pulls together the disparate strands of potential uses. We have conducted a systematic review of internationally reported ABC applications to produce an integrated and comprehensive ABM framework for management decision making. Traditional methods of costing are critically evaluated as a precursor to explaining the ABC model. We go on to illustrate our ABM framework with case examples.

This study aims to investigate the relationship between management accounting systems effectiveness (MASE) and company performance and then it examines the role of perceived environmental uncertainty as a moderator on this relationship. It provides empirical evidence from a developing market, especially from the Jordanian market.

This study is based on collecting its data using a quantitative method to assist in explaining and interpreting the results, whereby the study data were collected through a survey design approach using a questionnaire method to achieve the objectives of the study. The population of this study included all Jordanian companies listed on the Amman Stock Exchange (ASE) at the end of 2019, a total of 187 companies. Therefore, the study sample consists of all these companies (a completely sensuous population) which are listed on ASE at the end of 2019.

The findings of this study offered that two informational characteristics of MASE, namely, timeliness and integration, have a significant impact on the financial performance and other characteristics have no impact on the financial (FP) and nonfinancial (NFP) performance. The informational characteristics of management accounting systems complement each other to ensure the MASE in the company, where the relationship between MASE proxied by four informational characteristics together and FP as well as NFP, were highly significant. Additionally, the findings documented that perceived environmental uncertainty, namely, customer uncertainty, competitor uncertainty and technology uncertainty separately do not moderate the relationship between MASE and company performance (both FP and NFP).

The findings of this study shape the way for more thorough studies into monitoring MASE. Nevertheless, to start efficient decisions, managers need to comprehend the interaction of the MASE with other factors. All these considerations need to be comprehended both for and against the performance. Finally, this study addressed important issues that have practical management value. However, it is limited to a sample from one country. Future research would be interesting to study different businesses and cultural settings to enhance the theoretical and practical contributions of the study’s findings and conclusions. To be more specific, further study should have a wider view of the determinants of performance by containing economic factors in different areas such as the MENA region.

To the best of the knowledge, this is the first study of Jordan to examine the relationship between MASE and company performance from two sides (namely, financial and non-financial performance), moderated by perceived environmental uncertainty. As such, the study raises significant findings drawing attention to management accounting systems and the role of management accounting systems in Jordan.