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The purpose of this paper is to investigate to what extent the implementation of internal environmental management and voluntary environmental information is related to organisational change.

Organisational change literature provided a framework for the analysis of the materials which were collected through a mixed method. Data on internal environmental management were collected through a survey, while a quality disclosure index was used to assess the quality of the environmental voluntary disclosure. Interviews were used to enhance the quantitative results interpreted according to the four pathways proposed by Tilt (2006) and characterised by several levels of internal environmental management and voluntary disclosure.

The results indicated that companies implement more internal activities than external disclosure. Environmental planning and operational practices were the most important changes carried out. When environmental management accounting and environmental disclosure were also implemented, environmental aspects were more integrated within companies, thus revealing that a more structured integration of sustainability aspects within organisational values had taken place. The results underline the importance of primarily establishing a set of internal changes, driven by environmental planning, to promote organisational change.

The study presents a larger empirical analysis of the organisational change pathways followed by companies, showing similarities and differences among the four pathways. The results underline the importance of both dimensions for studying organisational changes. The framework of Tilt has been enriched, considering a more precise explanation of the internal aspects and adding the concept of the quality of disclosure as proxy to assess organisational change.

Organisational change is investigated through an extensive analysis of internal and external aspects and collecting quantitative and qualitative evidence. The analysis complements previous sustainability accounting literature focussed on the analysis of internal environmental management and external disclosure.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of management control systems (MCS) in organisational change towards sustainability. In particular, it examines the extent to which MCS may be instrumental in transformative organisational change in this sphere.

Through an in-depth case study of an Australian multinational corporation in the property sector, this paper explores the possibilities for MCS to influence organisational change towards a multi-bottom-line, balanced approach to social and environmental challenges facing corporations. MCS are conceptualised using Simons’ (1995) Levers of Control framework. On the question of sustainability, the approach adopted in this paper contrasts with much of the prior literature that largely takes a predominantly pragmatist approach and equates sustainability performance with financial performance. The prior literature generally reports a positive role for MCS in organisational change efforts. By contrast, drawing on the typology developed by Hopwood et al. (2005), this paper views sustainability as requiring a balancing of economic, social and environmental concerns.

The findings indicate that although MCS are not irrelevant, they do not play a transformative role in enabling deep-seated organisational change towards sustainability. The critical literature on the nature of MCS is drawn upon to explore the reasons for the observed non-role.

The analysis sheds light on factors that may influence the effectiveness of conventional notions of MCS in organisational change. The findings contribute to the debate regarding the suitability of continued efforts at using conventional notions of management accounting and MCS in enabling organisational change towards greater social and environmental sustainability. The paper also highlights the value of a critical examination of the usefulness of management accounting and control practices in the context of organisational change towards sustainability.

The ecological framework focuses on ecosystems, natural resources, agricultural practices, geographical locations, conservation and environmental management. Recently, ecology has provided the underlying framework for sustainability development and reporting. This paper aims to relate the ecological approach to the environmental and conservation objectives embedded in sustainability development and reporting.

The paper argues that sustainability reporting is an organizational development and management program that has to be studied within the context of ecological ethics. It examines the evolution of sustainability reporting in relation to triple bottom line (TBL) accounting systems prepared to report the economic, social and environmental objectives of organizations.

The paper shows that sustainability is a question that transcends several disciplines, including accounting and sociology. While sustainability has been within the domain of sociology (human ecology) and ecological anthropology, recently the subject has attracted researchers from other disciplines, notably from accounting and business management. This paper notes that sustainability development will continue to be of importance to financial accounting reports. TBL reporting has become a competitive advantage for many business organizations for sustained profitability and growth.

The paper examines how governmental and corporations' natural resources conservation efforts have shaped the disclosure of environmental and social information in sustainability accounting reports. It applies theories of functionalism, institutional legitimacy, adaptation, incremental and transformational growth strategies from the organizational ecology and sociology literature to study the evolution of sustainability development and reporting.

Accounting has benefited from sociological theory and methods of research. It highlights the importance of ecological issues in shaping the preparation of sustainability reporting in accounting systems, a subject of interest to practitioners and accounting researchers.

The paper is one of the few attempts to relate ecology and sustainability to accounting reports. It integrates the sociological and organizational development literature related to ecology to advance behavioral accounting research in sustainability reporting beyond current social and environmental issues.

The purpose of this paper is to propose an institutional entrepreneurship approach to examining management accounting change triggered by social and environmental concerns.

The study begins with a literature review concerning the role that old institutional economics and new institutional sociology have played in the study of management accounting change, underlining strengths and weaknesses. To deal with the main weaknesses, the institutional entrepreneurship approach is presented and utilized as the basis for the development of a conceptual framework, which is contextualized to the examination of management accounting change triggered by sustainability issues.

Management accounting change literature has not paid enough attention to the social constructivist roots of institutional theory. Through the application of a conceptual framework inspired by institutional change models and institutional entrepreneurship literature, this paper proposes another approach to examine how new management accounting practices are socially constructed during the course of organizational change, particularly in response to sustainability concerns.

This new framework has not yet demonstrated its explanatory power in a particular field.

The paper examines management accounting change as a social construction process led by institutional entrepreneurs who aim to mobilize resources and negotiate the definition and implementation of sustainability strategies and new management accounting practices, which will take environmental and social issues into consideration, in order to reach an agreement on the pre‐institutionalization, diffusion and institutionalization of sustainable practices.

Contemporary organizations are facing an operating environment characterized by volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous, and “permanent whitewater.” To sustain high performance in this context, organizations must be able to change and develop as efficiently and effectively as possible. Within organizations, there are actors who catalyze and advance change in this manner; these actors are known as “champions.” Yet the scholar who wishes to conduct research concerning champions of change and organizational development is likely to be met by a highly fragmented literature. Varying notions of champions are scattered throughout extant research, where authors of articles cite different sources when conceptualizing champions; often superficially. Furthermore, many types of highly specific and nuanced non-generalizable champions have proliferated, making it difficult for practitioners and researchers to discover useful findings on how to go about making meaningful changes in their context. The purpose of this study was to address these problems for practitioners and researchers by engendering thoroughness, clarity, and coherence within champion scholarship. This was done by conducting the first comprehensive, critical yet insightful review of the champion literature within the organizational sciences using content analysis to re-conceptualize champions and develop a meaningful typology from which the field can be advanced. The chapter first suggests a return to Schön (1963) as the basis from which to conceptualize champions and, second, offers a typology consisting of 10 meta-champions of organizational change and development – Collaboration, Human Rights, Innovation, Product, Project, Service, Strategic, Sustainability, Technology, and Venture Champions – from which change practice and future research can benefit.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically explore how accountants can contribute to organisational sustainability initiatives.

The paper adopts a critical case study methodology, focused on a large Australian company in which senior management sought to engage accounting staff in an internal sustainability reporting initiative focused on eco-efficiency. Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus, capitals and field enable a relational analysis of the findings.

While accountants adapted well to early changes aligned to cost efficiency, they struggled to engage with more creative sustainability improvements. The paper explains both adaptions and constraints as interactions between accountants’ professional habitus, capitals and their broader organisational field. Prior strategies to engage accountants (e.g. training) only partially address these factors.

The accounting profession has persistently urged members to contribute to organisational sustainability initiatives. This paper provides insight into how organisations might combine professional acculturation and appropriate capitals to advance this agenda.

Although eco-efficiency is only one potential element of comprehensive organisational sustainability management, the paper’s insights into engaging accountants contributes to understanding how broader social sustainability agendas might be advanced.

The study addresses calls for empirical insights into how accountants can contribute to corporate sustainability practices. Prior studies have polarised between interpreting accountants as either enablers or barriers to sustainability change. This paper explores how shifting configurations of habitus, capital and organisational field can enable either outcome.

Individual change agents for corporate sustainability can drive the transformation of organizations and foster sustainable development. Current research literature is growing and is published in a wide variety of journals. This systematic literature review provides an overview and synthesis of different understandings of individual change agents for corporate sustainability transformation. It identifies gaps and puts forward propositions to contribute to theoretical development in the field.

This paper conducts a systematic literature review and thematic content analysis of individual agency in light of corporate sustainability transformation.

The analysis identifies five research streams, three key dimensions of individual change agency for sustainability (beliefs, actions and competencies) and presents levels of individual agency for transformation. An integrated definition of change agents for sustainability is proposed.

The review concludes with implications to support individuals in fostering sustainability transformations of organizations, markets and societies. The synthesis and propositions help in identifying which dimensions are already and could in future be addressed by individual change agents. While acknowledging the usual limitations of literature reviews, this paper can inspire future empirical research on the effectiveness of individual change agents for sustainability.

By synthesizing different understandings in the literature of individual change agents for sustainability, this article contributes to the theoretical development of individual agency in the areas of understandings, research streams, dimensions and perspectives. It also develops propositions on how individual change agency can effectively contribute to sustainability transformations at individual, organizational and systems levels.

This paper adopts a sensemaking lens to explore the process of entrepreneurship-driven organizational transformation for sustainability.

Analysis is based on an in-depth case study of a large European meat company. Sensemaking by top and middle managers is analyzed over the period of 18 months.

The findings show how, over time, bidirectional sensemaking, that is, sensemaking for and of sustainability-oriented entrepreneurship, directed and accelerated organizational transformation for sustainability. The case company transformed with regard to organizational strategy, structure, operations and identity. The process revealed temporally different involvement of top and middle managers in sensemaking.

This paper offers unique insights into fast and emergent sustainability-oriented change in an established organization within a highly topical context. The results highlight how continuous and increasingly shared sensemaking can help top and middle managers navigate organizational change for sustainability in dynamic environments over time.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of management control systems (MCS) in strategically responding to institutional pressures for sustainability (IPS). Drawing on institutional theory (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983) and strategic responses to institutional pressures framework (Oliver, 1991), the study argues that organisations strategically respond to IPS using MCS.

Data were collected by interviewing sustainability managers of a large-scale multinational apparel manufacturing organisation with its headquarters in Sri Lanka.

The study finds that organisations actively respond to IPS using acquiescence, compromise, avoidance, defiance, and manipulation strategies. The results not only reveal that formal MCS play a critical role in complying with IPS, but also in more active responses, including compromise, avoidance, defiance, and manipulation. The findings highlight that organisations use MCS as a medium to respond strategically to IPS, and in turn, the use of MCS has important implications for organisational change and improvement.

The study has implications for Western organisations, finding that suppliers committed to sustainability in Asia strategically respond to IPS as a means of strengthening outsourcing contracts, instead of blindly accepting. Findings indicate that organisational changes and success seem to be a function of strategically responding to IPS rather than operating an organisation by neglecting sustainability challenges. The organisational ability to use MCS in strategically responding to IPS has the potential for long-term value creation.

This study provides novel insights into the MCS, strategy and sustainability literatures by exploring different uses of MCS tools in strategically responding to IPS. More specifically, it shows how the use of MCS tools varies in supporting strategic responses, and with respective IPS. In doing so, it enhances our understanding of the importance of the use of MCS in dynamics of institutional change and practical variances in strategically responding to IPS.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop a framework which sheds new light on how sustainability control systems (SCS) can be used in proactive strategic responses to corporate sustainability pressures.

Design/Methodology/Approach – Corporate sustainability pressures are identified using insights from institutional theory and the resource-based view of the firm.

Findings – The paper presents an integrated framework showing the corporate sustainability pressures, proactive strategic responses to these pressures, and how organizations might use SCS in their responses to the corporate sustainability pressures they face.

Practical Implications – The proposed framework shows how organizations can use SCS in proactive strategic responses to corporate sustainability pressures.

Originality/Value – The paper suggests that instead of using traditional financial-oriented management control systems, organizations need more focus on emerging SCS as a means of achieving sustainability objectives. In particular, the paper proposes different SCS tools that can be used in proactive strategic responses to sustainability pressures in terms of (i) specifying and communicating sustainability objectives, (ii) monitoring sustainability performance, and (iii) providing motivation by linking sustainability rewards to performance.