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The purpose of this paper is to present a linkage between performance measurement at the business level and the concept of public goods usage, and a linkage between the micro- and macro-economic aspects of sustainability.

Exhibiting the essentials of a public goods cost perspective in order to initiate discussion between statisticians, standard setters for business reporting and practitioners.

Showing what has been achieved in measuring the outcomes of sustainable development efforts and what still needs to be done in order to arrive at aggregate values for national and global commons.

Linking performance measurement at the business level to public goods usage will depend on the co-operation of businesses and national statistics which test the feasibility of monetary indicators for both the micro- and the macro-levels.

For practitioners in both the statistics profession and management accounting who are concerned with measurement of socioeconomic and environmental phenomena, this attempt at integrating sustainable development indicators and the managerial control system of companies might provide a valuable proposition. It is also a useful contribution to the ongoing debate of the value and credibility of sustainability reporting.

If businesses make no attempts to exhibit numerically how they contribute to preserving and expanding the societal commons, they will be confronted with ever-growing agitation from pressure groups and they might be bypassed in the discussion on the issue of sustainability parameters that those groups are advocating.

This is the first academic paper that demonstrates a reporting model which unites business accounts and national accounts.

This paper seeks to present a model which connects performance measurement at the business level to the concept of public goods usage, and thus incites a linkage between the micro- and macro-economic aspects of sustainability.

The paper presents the essentials of a public goods cost perspective in order to agitate discussion between statisticians, standard-setters for business reporting and practitioners who wish to explore new approaches in the topic of building performance indicators.

The paper illustrates what has been achieved in measuring the outcomes of sustainable development efforts and what still needs to be done in order to arrive at aggregate values for national and global commons.

The viability of the concept will depend on the co-operation of businesses and national statistics which test the feasibility of the proposed micro-macro-link through numerical studies. As the paper is published, efforts are under way with a piloting group to initiate a pertinent study, but the results have yet to be attained.

For practitioners in both the statistics profession and management accounting who are concerned with measurement of socioeconomic and environmental phenomena, this attempt at integrating sustainable development indicators to the managerial control system of companies might provide a valuable proposition. It also is a helpful contribution to the ongoing debate about the value and credibility of sustainability reporting.

If businesses make no attempts to exhibit numerically how they contribute to preserve and expand the societal commons, they will be confronted with ever-growing agitation from pressure groups and they might be bypassed in the discussion on the issue of sustainability parameters that those groups are advocating.

This is the first academic paper that demonstrates a reporting model that unites business accounts and national accounts.

Drucker has often been criticized for his pejorative interpretation of business ethics and the use of the term “casuistry”. This paper aims to show that Drucker was just the opposite of unethical in his viewpoint regarding the behavior of managers and organizations, and that in fact much of his writings pointed to discourse‐ethics‐universalism and away from casuistic particularism. Specifically, the paper seeks to analyze and contrast the ways in which US and European institutions take action (a “transatlantic divide”) when management and society eventually reposition their stance on ethics, as forecast by Drucker.

This is a comparative study emphasizing the main day‐to‐day perspectives of ethical issues in businesses and how they are handled in the USA and in Europe. This is complemented by references to what Drucker's position would be on those issues and how he would have shown that “good ethics” serves to ensure that entrepreneurial energies end up by serving society and not destroying it.

The paper provides an insight about how change is successfully brought about in current management practices by adhering to discourse and right behavior as pointed out by Drucker. It suggests that leaders acting responsibly are intrinsically ethical and will transfer their individual positions into their organization.

The research primarily concentrates around the implications of Drucker's writings on the “transatlantic divide” and does not extensively explore how this relates to businesses in Asia and other areas outside the Western world.

The paper displays a number of standards and guidelines that have been adopted by practitioners and thus provides an input for further applications. Businesses that have adopted Drucker's philosophies will find useful directions on how to connect them to other philosophical developments.

This paper fulfils an identified need to reject claims that Drucker is an “efficiency enthusiast” pursuing “global change in a manner that has little to do with minimal standards of human decency, to say nothing of democracy, much less of emancipation”. It proves that the changes and the repositioning required for the current economic situation need a full understanding of Drucker in all respects of his work.

This paper focuses on the implications for management accounting of “connectivity” amongst modern enterprises. It seeks to illustrate how practical guidance for management accountants who work in business networks can be gleaned from analogies out of traditional management accounting.

The paper explores four avenues that demonstrate linkages between accounting formats in centrally coordinated systems and network accounting, namely: cost budgets and cost design; collaborative planning, forecasting and replenishment; multi‐stage performance‐monitoring; and accounting for transaction costs.

Highly interconnected business transforms management accounting into an activity that requires concepts to coordinate (partially) independent management systems. The concepts of distributed decision‐making and trust building through reliable reporting nicely fit this environment. Even though such concepts are widely accepted, as are the notions of transaction cost and collaborative performance monitoring, practical guidance on this is not abundantly at hand in academia or in professional outlets. The study shows how a “tool kit” might be developed to provide methods for decision support, and management control, for each stage of a business network's development.

It would be desirable that this exposition be supplemented by research concerning the common experiences and practices of accountants who operate in business networks.

The exposition applied in this paper could enable a new type of access to the issues of inter‐organisational management.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is an issue-oriented substantive domain. Nevertheless, there are countless socio-economic, medico-techno-scientific, environmental and ethical philosophical questions that are far from being settled. In pursuit of a more desirable and sustainable future, this work problematizes current corporate responsibility (CR) research, education and practice.

This contribution provides a critical perspective on the future of CR research and practice and offers a way forward based on theoretical prescience.

The paper delineates a taxonomy of typical crises, categorized as burning, existential, overlooked and neglected crises. This taxonomy can be used as a tool for all forms of scenario analysis, empirical work and policymaking. This allows various futures issues to be given targeted interventions, assigned a focal theory, or allocated differentiated resources and appropriate time and space depending on their technical nature and the institutional context within which the issues unfold.

This paper argues that CR research risks losing steam despite its near ubiquitous nature and the major contributions hitherto made. Nevertheless, when problems are strategically thought out in the light of the taxonomy above, they provide promising avenues for insightful research and value-creating practice to meet the expectations of both business and society.

A profound chasm exists between CR practice and rhetoric. This void is particularly stark when we consider the interface between science and technology and developing economies. This paper explores desirable futures for CR while analyzing what is possible and probable.

The case can be used to discuss leadership issues in young ventures. It also allows for a discussion of effective sales and marketing functions for a new product. The case also addresses the different challenges facing certain business models in the market, and finally the importance of having a supporting team.

The case traces the development of an Egyptian startup software venture and the challenges faced regarding the entrepreneurship ecosystem. The startup’s main dilemma is whether to continue in its existing market or to extend elsewhere. Launching the main services of the startup is another challenge, as the market needs to be educated to see its value. Despite the success story, as a young Egyptian entrepreneur, the founder is expected to face various challenges to excel in the Egyptian market, such as financing, marketing, teamwork and self-development of the entrepreneur himself.

The case can be used at all levels, from undergraduate and MBA classes to executive seminars, because the issues it addresses are of broad interest.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.

This study adds to human resource management research by addressing relevant questions about how and when employees' suffering from workplace bullying may direct them away from voluntary efforts to improve the organizational status quo. It postulates a mediating role of beliefs about work meaningfulness deprivation, as well as beneficial, moderating roles of two personal resources (resilience and passion for work) in this link.

The research hypotheses were tested with survey data collected among employees who work in the construction retail sector.

A critical reason that bullying victims refuse to exhibit change-oriented voluntarism is that they develop beliefs that their organization deprives them of meaningful work, which, as the authors theorize, enables them to protect their self-esteem resources. The extent to which employees can bounce back from challenging situations or feel passionate about work subdues this detrimental effect.

When employees feel upset about being bullied at work, their adverse work conditions may translate into work-related indifference (tarnished change-oriented citizenship), which then compromises employees' and the organization's ability to overcome the difficult situation. Managers should recognize how employees' personal resources can serve as protective shields against this risk.

This study details the detrimental role of demeaning workplace treatment in relation to employees' change-oriented organizational citizenship, as explained by their convictions that their organization operates in ways that make their work unimportant. It is mitigated by energy-enhancing personal resources.

The square root law (SRL) is a popular model for assessing inventory levels when changing the number of warehouses. Previous empirical research, however, has shown that mostly its underlying assumptions do not hold in practice. This sparks the question how inaccurate the SRL’s results are. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

In 26 company cases of reducing the number of warehouses, the estimation error of the SRL is analysed irrespective of its underlying assumptions.

The analysis reveals an average estimation error for total inventory of 27.85 per cent (median=27.84 per cent), but a high variability across the cases. The SRL seems to mostly overestimate inventory savings from centralisation and inventory increases from decentralisation. Managers should only use the SRL if inventory depends on the number of warehouses in their situation, i.e. if they use the economic order or production quantity policy and safety factor approach. Suggestions for coping with the SRL’s estimation error are given.

This paper is based on the 26 cases that could be found in a thorough literature review in the ten most widely spoken languages and that contained or allowed to deduce the necessary information. In order to enable wider generalisations, this sample could be extended.

Most past research has been more theoretical in nature. This research is the first to investigate the SRL’s estimation error using a variety of company cases and how to cope with this error.