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Management is not always professional in all its attitudes and actions and has often been – and still is – inadequate in some aspects. It is useful for managers at all levels occasionally to review their approach and experience in the light of continual change. In general terms, attempts to assist that process. Setting the agenda, choosing the method, executing the work, reviewing progress and learning for the future are matters requiring the manager′s personal attention, in addition to a plethora of other functions connecting “owners”, staff and other interested parties – even customers!

In this chapter, we investigate whether the first-time issuance of a standalone corporate sustainability report led to changes in reputation as measured by Fortune Most Admired scores. Based on a sample of 59 U.S. companies issuing their first standalone sustainability report over the period from 2001 to 2007, and controlling for the financial “halo effect” reported by Brown and Perry (1994), we find, on average no significant changes in reputational scores. However, cross sectional analysis shows that issuing companies from socially exposed industries experienced decreases in scores. Further, report quality, at least at the extremes appears to be positively related to changes in perceived reputation. These results are consistent with Godfrey's (2005) arguments with respect to corporate reputation.

Current health care quality performance indicators appear to be inadequate to inform the public to make the right choices. The aim of this paper is to define a framework and an organizational setting in which valid and reliable healthcare information can be produced to inform the general public about healthcare quality.

To improve health care quality information, the paper explores the analogy between financial accounting, which aims to produce valid and reliable information to support companies informing their shareholders and stakeholders, and healthcare aiming to inform future patients about healthcare quality. Based on this analogy, the authors suggest a measurement framework and an organizational setting to produce healthcare information.

The authors suggest a five‐quality element framework to structure quality reporting. The authors also indicate the best way to report each type of quality, comparing performance indicators with certification/accreditation. Health gain is the most relevant quality indicator to inform the public, but this information is the most difficult to obtain. Finally, the organizational setting, comparable to financial accounting, required to provide valid, reliable and objective information on healthcare quality is described.

Framework elements should be tested in quantitative studies or case studies, such as a performance indicator's relative value compared to accreditation/ certification. There are, however, elements that can be implemented right away such as third party validation of healthcare information produced by healthcare institutions.

Given the money spent on healthcare worldwide, valid and reliable healthcare quality information's value can never be overestimated. It can justify delivering “expensive” healthcare, but also points the way to savings by stopping useless healthcare. Valid and reliable information puts the patient in the driver's seat and enables him or her to make the right decision when choosing their healthcare provider.

The paper attempts to determine whether market participants see value in the corporate choice to begin publishing a standalone sustainability report. It also seeks to investigate whether differences in market reactions are associated with the quality of the sustainability report.

The paper uses standard market model methods to isolate the unexpected change in market returns in the period surrounding the announcement of the release of a first‐time sustainability report.

The paper finds, on average, no significant market reaction to the announcement of the release of the sustainability reports. However, in cross‐sectional analyses, it is found that companies with the highest quality reports exhibited significantly more positive market reactions than companies issuing lower quality reports. These results hold when we control for firm size and membership in socially exposed industries.

The paper examines only the US firms and the measure of quality is based on an assessment of the extent to which reports provide disclosures recommended by the Global Reporting Initiative. The sample is also relatively small. Finally, the analysis examines perceived value for only one potential stakeholder group – shareholders. Future research could address any of these shortcomings.

The evidence suggests that companies seeking value from their sustainability reporting need to carefully consider the quality of their presentations.

The finding that quality of sustainability reporting is important to investors provides valuable evidence to support improvements in the implementation of sustainability accounting and reporting.

In this chapter, we update stakeholder salience research using the new lens of stakeholder work: the purposive processes of organization aimed at being aware of, identifying, understanding, prioritizing, and engaging stakeholders. Specifically, we focus on stakeholder prioritization work — primarily as represented by the stakeholder salience model — and discuss contributions, shortcomings, and possibilities for this literature. We suggest that future research focus on stakeholder inclusivity, the complexity of prioritization work within intra-corporate markets, the integration of stakeholder prioritization with other forms of stakeholder work, and the development of managerial tools for multiobjective decision making within the strategic management context.

Transformative innovation is a particular manifestation of generativity that emerges when organizations explore the intersection of business and society, embracing social, environmental, ethical, or similar initiatives as an integral part of their strategic missions. The chapter reports findings from the World Inquiry, a search for stories of transformative innovation. The stories illustrate how transformative innovation may (1) extend mutually beneficial outcomes of activity to business and society, (2) increase the scale of enacted human strengths, and (3) invoke a deep shift in values, assumptions, and behaviors that guide an organization. The exploration of transformative inquiry demonstrates how generativity emerges when business strategies integrate the interests of multiple stakeholders.

PORN IS IN THE NEWS AGAIN. The Bishop of Coventry has suggested that good citizens form vigilante groups (literary lynch mobs?) to fight ‘the rising tide of filth’, while Lord Longford has announced the names of the people to serve on his very own enquiry into the subject of pornography. One would suggest that the membership of the committee would invalidate any conclusion that it might reach. A sanctified pop singer, an ageing tv guru and assorted clergymen cannot be said to be a representative selection of the community. Not one member of the unofficial commission appears to have an open mind on the topic.

This study examines the contribution of urban development to Vietnam's economic progress over the period 1986–2020. The study uses an augmented Solow framework, where urbanization is included as a shift variable in addition to capital per worker and accounts for structural breaks. It examines the cointegration and the long-run and short-run effects of urban development from four different cases of cointegration (constant, restricted constant, restricted trend and trend options), with each case accounting for the effect of a significant structural break. Also, the study provides causality nexus to check the presence of urbanization-led growth hypothesis. From the results, we note a long-run positive effect of urbanization on economic growth, but no short-run effects. In all cases, a 1% increase in population results in 0.8–0.9 increase of output, hence supporting a positive and momentous effect of urbanization over the long-term. We note a significant positive effect of a single structural break period (1991), which is a period of major shift towards economic progress. We note bidirectional causality between capital and output and a unidirectional causality from output and capital to urbanization. The former suggests a mutually reinforcing effect of capital accumulation and economic growth, and the latter indicates that urban development necessitates economic growth and capital accumulation. The findings derived from this study provide further impetus for urban development and urban policies and consider urbanization as a critical source of economic growth for Vietnam.

Process orientation is important for improving organizational performance. The process view is considered a key enabler of digital transformation, and thus management control systems (MCS) are expected to incorporate this view. However, the existing body of knowledge is fragmented, as different process approaches are often considered independently following a reductionist view of control practices. This paper aims to provide recommendations for further research as well as guidance for practice by a systematic review of the state of research of MC for process orientation. It is based on both a comprehensive view to MC using an MCS package approach and a comprehensive view of process orientation.

A systematic literature review addressing major types of process orientation approaches was performed by applying the comprehensive MC framework of Malmi and Brown. The results were synthesized and propositions were developed.

All components of the MC framework, as well as MCS packages, are highly relevant for process orientation. Propositions regarding configurations of MC for process orientation show directions for future research. However, comprehensive considerations of packages and of individual components, especially cultural controls, remain scarce in the literature.

To the best of the authors‘ knowledge, this paper is the first of its kind to provide a comprehensive, structured overview of MC for process orientation, applying a nonreductionist view, based on an MCS Package approach, and consolidating the so far fragmented view of different process approaches.

LEBENSRAUM The London of Roman times, Elizabethan London, Pepys' London, the London of 1900, the capital of today — one after another successive maps in most atlases record the relentless growth of the metropolis over the years. But always the most rapid and sensational growth is seen between 1900 and the start of the Second World War.