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This study aims to explore the potential dynamics between performance measurement at the organisational level and emerging urban development projects at the macro-institutional field level of sustainability governance and accountability.

Using a theoretical triangulation between three theories, namely contingency theory, institutional theory and social cognitive theory, this study investigates not only the macro-micro dynamics, but also the (recursive) micro-macro dynamics between performance measurement and urban development. Using an Egyptian public sector urban development organisation and its sustainable energy project as an empirical example, interviews, documents and observations were collected.

The dynamics emerged between field urban development projects and the (unintended) organisational implementation of the performance measurement system, the sustainability key performance indicators (KPIs) reporting system. Contributing to previous literature, these dynamics have been institutionalised through (three) interrelated levels: the (macro-field) urban development contingencies and pressures for sustainability KPIs reporting, the (organisational) institutionalisation of the urban development performance measurement system and then the (micro-organisational) cognitive role of sustainability KPIs reports in (re)making political urban development decisions.

This study faced some limitations that paved the way for future research axes. For political and security reasons, difficulties were encountered in conducting interviews with government actors in the sustainable energy project under study. Also, due to the practical separation of the environmental sustainability system from the sustainability KPIs reporting system in this case study, environmental sustainability is outside the scope.

Sustainability reports may influence public sector decision-making processes in a specific urban development context. These KPIs reports may also increase public sector management opportunities for urban auditing, transparency, accountability and sustainability governance. These KPIs may also guide public sector management to lower prices in poor villages to increase smart energy consumption and improve community health.

Sustainability reports may increase decision-makers' understanding of consumer behaviours and societal changes. This may help in making appropriate political decisions to improve their welfare and regular smart energy consumption. Not only urban citizens, but this social advantage may also extend to urban development employees through employees' promotion, training and access to government-funded academic and professional scholarships.

This study is an attempt to develop current public sector performance measurement analyses in the emerging urban development field using a triadic analytical approach. This study also fed the literature with an extended case study that clarified the (multi-level) and (two-way) dynamics between performance measurement and urban development.

The purpose of this paper is to systematically review the academic literature on sustainability performance measurement for sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) published over the past 20 years. The development and current state of instruments, concepts and systems to measure and manage sustainability performance are examined and research gaps are identified.

A systematic literature review is conducted spanning two decades of publications in peer-reviewed academic journals. The publications are analyzed with regard to frequency and bibliometrical metrics and research content.

The research examines the development of the field over 20 years, which has witnessed a steep rise in related publications only for the past five years, indicating a late interest in the area compared to other sustainability topics. Social performance measures entered the discussion particularly late, whereas economic and environmental measurement almost exclusively dominated the field for the first few years.

The authors identify research gaps and discuss future directions for research. The analysis shows how the research area develops from a topic dealt with by a small group of interested researchers into a broader research field acknowledged in the scientific community.

Findings underline the importance of measuring performance for sustainability management of supply chains. The review identifies what measurement and management tools are discussed in the literature over time.

This is the first literature review on sustainability performance measurement for SSCM summarizing the development over the time span of 20 years.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the relationships between management, measurement and performance of sustainability in supply chains. The authors develop a framework which explores these links through decoupling as articulated by the institutional theory. They draw on a conceptual continuum of reactive-proactive sustainable supply chain practices and identify clusters of companies along these dimensions and evaluate the theoretical and managerial implications of this for sustainability performance.

This study uses primary and secondary datasets from 12 inductive, multiple case studies across different industries. This method ensures that we are better able to encapsulate a broader and more diverse set of practices and settings which in turn adds robustness to the theory we induced from our findings.

The authors find varying degrees of alignment between management practices and measurement systems of sustainable supply chains. Some firms better align their sustainable supply chain management and measurement practices than others, resulting in tighter coupling and ultimately improved sustainability performance in the supply chain.

Further research may explore the conditions under which firms decouple their practices and the contextual settings that are associated with decoupling, loosely and tightly coupled alignment. Additionally, the conceptual framework should be tested across countries, industries and different relationships between public and private organisations.

This is one of the first empirical explorations of the decoupling theory and the reactive-proactive continuum in sustainable supply chain management.

The primary aim of this paper is to develop a reference model for measuring corporate sustainability that can be used by organizations to integrate sustainability measures into their current performance measurement system, helping them to embed sustainability into daily activities and to forge a sustainability culture. A secondary intent is to present a critical analysis of some well‐known sustainability measurement initiatives, showing their strengths and shortcomings.

The approach employed to develop the reference model described in this paper is a qualitative analysis of the complementarity, shortcomings and strengths of eight well‐known sustainability measurement initiatives alongside an extant corporate sustainability literature review.

The research carried out has found that there is not a single initiative analyzed that tackles all sustainability issues and in fact there is no consensus around what should be measured and how. The main divergences are related to the following aspects: different criteria are applied by the initiatives to classify issues between dimensions; same impacts are evaluated at different levels of a cause‐effect relationship continuum by the same initiative; disagreement about the groups of stakeholders a company should engage and assessing the company impacts that should be taken into account (direct only or those of its whole value chain). Moreover, the way in which most initiatives measure sustainability performance is not the most adequate to embed it into the performance measurement systems, since they evaluate sustainability via presence of management practice and employ absolute values indicators rather than result‐oriented measures and ratio indicators that are more adequate for internal decision making. In this context, a sustainability measurement model was developed that is more comprehensive, objective and value‐oriented, constituting an attempt to shed light on these problems.

The major limitation is the fact that the proposed model does not provide any guidance to select the sustainability key issues for an organization to be integrated into its current performance measurement system. It mainly provides a very comprehensive set of sustainability issues and measures that could be used.

This paper sheds light on some sustainability measurement current challenges – lack of consensus of what should be measured and how – and sustainability embedment into daily activities. Academics will find it useful in their research efforts since it presents a broad review of sustainability concepts as well as an analysis of strengths and shortcomings of all and each sustainability initiative focused. Practitioners will also find it useful as a tool to better understand the sustainability concept, to start measuring sustainability performance, to integrate it in, as well as to evaluate, their current performance measurement systems.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss what a fully sustainable supply chain might look like and the consequences that can be drawn from this view. Also, it develops a practical approach towards sustainability supply chain performance measurement and management. The paper develops an analytical framework for the assessment of approaches for the measurement and management of sustainability performance of supply chains (SPSCs). Little research has been conducted on the issues, existing methods and possible approaches to measure and manage SPSCs.

Literature review and conceptual development of framework.

The paper develops an analytical framework for the assessment of approaches for the measurement and management of SPSCs. Existing approaches discussed in the vein of improving supply chains and increasing recycling are examined in the light of our framework, and areas to extend the research on sustainability performance measurement and management are identified.

Opportunities for extension of research on sustainability performance measurement and management of supply chains are identified.

The framework offers help to managers in their choice of sustainability performance measurement and management approaches.

The paper provides a structured overview of sustainability performance measurement and management literature and approaches to supply chain management. The framework proposed provides a foundation for further research.

The purpose of this study is to illustrate the use of the ad hoc methodology of causal mapping to support the process of quantifying the financial returns related to sustainability investments. The present study uses two methods to build causal maps, that is aggregate and congregate mapping, in order to capture managerial cognition and derive a model that reflects companies’ competitive advantages. The resulting causal map is a prerequisite and serves as a building block for the design of the organisation’s performance management systems for sustainability.

This study relies on qualitative, deductive research undertaken at the leading international pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk. This chapter presents the results of a longitudinal study developed through an action research approach conducted at the Company over a four-year period.

This study illustrates how the described approach for developing causal maps can facilitate the elicitation of managerial tacit knowledge and the consequent identification of indicators to quantify the investments in sustainability.

This chapter proves the relevance of causal mapping as a comprehensive, articulated basis for developing and improving organisations’ strategic performance measurement systems (SPMSs).

This study’s main contribution is the triangulation of multiple qualitative methods to enhance the reliability of causal maps. This innovative approach supports the use of causal mapping to extract managerial tacit knowledge in order to identify indicators for the evaluation of investments in sustainability.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a methodology to identify sustainable supply chain key performance indicators (KPI) that can then be used for sustainability performance evaluation for suppliers.

Initially the complexity of sustainable supply chain performance measurement is discussed. Then, a two-stage method utilizing neighborhood rough set theory to identify KPI and data envelopment analysis (DEA) to benchmark and evaluate relative performance using the KPI is completed. Additional analysis is performed to determine the sensitivity of the KPI set formation and performance results.

The results show that KPI can be determined using neighborhood rough set, and DEA performance results provide insight into relative performance of suppliers. The supply chain sustainability performance results from both the neighborhood rough set and DEA can be quite sensitive parameters selected and sustainability KPI sets that were determined.

The data utilized in this study are illustrative and simulated. Only one model for the neighborhood rough set and DEA was utilized. Additional investigations using a variation of rough set and DEA models can be completed.

This tool set is valuable for managers to help identify sustainable supply chain KPI (from among hundreds of potential measures) and evaluate sustainability performance of various units within supply chains, including supply chain partners, departments, projects and programs.

Sustainability incorporates many business, economic and social implications. The methods introduced in this paper can help organizations and their supply chains become more strategically and operationally sustainable.

Few tools and techniques exist in the sustainable supply chain literature to help develop KPIs and evaluate sustainability performance of suppliers and the supply chain. This paper is one of the first that integrates neighborhood rough set and DEA to address this important sustainable supply chain performance measurement issue.

The paper provides a research framework for analyzing CSR issues and suggests knowledge gaps that can be addressed by managerial accounting researchers.

The paper draws on frameworks introduced by Epstein (2008), Aguinis and Glavas (2012), and Hahn, Figge, Pinkse, and Preuss (2010).

Despite the potential tension between managing corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance and corporate financial performance, researchers have generally established a positive relationship between the two. However, the underlying mechanisms or processes linking CSR efforts to financial performance are not well understood. Managerial accounting researchers can help fill the knowledge gap on linkages between processes, performance measures, and incentives in achieving CSR goals. A particularly important area of potential research is how firms motivate creativity, both individually and collectively, to integrate CSR initiatives into firm processes.

The paper provides a framework for researchers starting out at the intersection of management accounting and CSR.

This paper aims to analyze the process of implementation of a sustainability performance measurement (SPM) system by a North Italian university, which was constructed based on a participatory multi-stakeholders’ approach. In addition, it provides evidence on the use of outcome indicators.

The methodology is based on a single exploratory case study research.

The process of implementation of the new SPM system started with the intervention of an academic in accounting who acted as a propeller. The adoption of the framework required a shared meaning of sustainability among different stakeholders and indicators to track the shift toward sustainable development (SD). Despite the authors could not prove the stable adoption of the framework for the future, as new governing bodies were appointed in Beta, that framework could be considered a valid attempt to move from a single projects’ evaluation on sustainability performance to a systemic approach and introduce outcome indicators in performance appraisal. The framework supported university’s decision-making related to SD actions.

Difficulties in the measurement process were linked to the information system which was not designed to allow the collection of some of the newly introduced sustainability data. However, an attempt to introduce a personalized assessment tool fostered the improvement of planning activities for 2015.

The originality of the paper is twofold: first, it represents an attempt to discuss the process of implementation of a SPM system that was designed by a participatory multi-stakeholders’ approach. Second, the framework was designed to consider also outcomes’ indicators as urged by scholars calling universities to promote the shift toward a sustainable society.