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The purpose of this study is to explore if and how companies strive for a harmonization of management accounting systems in their international business units to support company-wide consistent strategy implementation and to analyze the underlying drivers and pitfalls. Our paper is motivated by the tension between the need for consistent strategy implementation in the different international business units of multinational companies and the traditional differences in management accounting practices across countries.

The field study comprised semi-structured in-depth interviews with management accounting experts in selected German and Spanish business units of 15 major German multinational companies.

The authors identified strong efforts for company-wide harmonization of management accounting practices and found that beside explicit initiatives set by corporate headquarters, more implicit pressures such as the education of management accountants, the work of global consultancies and the use of standardized ERP-systems constitute strong drivers of the identified harmonization.

The findings highlight implicit pressures as important drivers of the harmonization of management accounting systems in the international business units of multinational companies. Taking these implicit pressures into consideration can help multinational companies striving for a harmonization of business unit management accounting for consistent strategy implementation.

Building on a unique sample of pairs of German and Spanish business units of 15 major German companies, the field study explores harmonization practices and its drivers in multinational companies.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the drawbacks of current social and environmental accounting methods and to present a classification for developing a new accounting model.

The various social and environmental accounting methods are classified and discussed on the basis of various criteria such as the types of accounting principles and the content and information units utilized.

Current social and environmental accounting methods utilize different criteria, measurement units and principles, a fact that makes the information provided ambiguous and problematic for a reliable business‐society dialogue under a common and understandable context. A new classification is presented based on specific criteria in the prospect of developing a new accounting model.

The proposed new classification aiming to develop a new accounting model is a theoretical proposition which should be validated and tested in practice with a series of case studies before it can be recommended as an alternative to current accounting methods.

The paper attempts to highlight the drawbacks of the current social and environmental accounting methods and proposes a new classification for the development of a new accounting model.

This paper explores the effects of the adaptation of the learning organisation (LO) concept to teaching in a university setting. The literature in accounting education calls for a change in traditional teaching methods in order to produce accounting graduates whose skills are more appropriate for the contemporary business and professional environment. To address this deficiency accounting educators have started to explore and use teaching innovations. In this study, the LO concept has been adapted to a teaching environment, in contrast to most research which has focused on LO in business settings. The paper, through the examination of empirical evidence arising from a natural experiment, was able to determine some of the impacts arising from the adaptation of the LO concept to teaching in a university setting. The results of the paper suggest that the adaptation of the LO concept not only resulted in improved student learning outcomes, but also influenced life‐long learning. Further research could widen the scope of the operationalisation of the LO concept and explore its use in other undergraduate and postgraduate units.

The purpose of this study is to describe the development of market based accounting research (MBAR) published in Indonesia for 10 years. This study attempts to explain the topics of MBAR, research method used, the variables, between-variable relationship formed, and the units analysis used in MBAR. This research uses qualitative-descriptive method to create descriptive models of MBAR articles published in accounting journals that have been accredited with minimum grade of B. The analysis of 109 MBAR articles of five accounting journals shows that 10 MBAR themes are still potential. Among three methods in MBAR, the multivariate association study is dominant. Some papers use intervening and moderating model to explore the relationship between accounting data and capital market reaction. The results for each theme are described in a research map that shows the relationship between variables (constructs) of MBAR from three units of analysis. This paper finds some implications to MBAR research agenda in the future, especially for meta-analysis research and triangulation research, due to many inconsistencies of the MBAR findings in Indonesia. In addition, accounting standard research topic is still promising in the moment of accounting standards transition.

Aim of the present monograph is the economic analysis of the role of MNEs regarding globalisation and digital economy and in parallel there is a reference and examination of some legal aspects concerning MNEs, cyberspace and e‐commerce as the means of expression of the digital economy. The whole effort of the author is focused on the examination of various aspects of MNEs and their impact upon globalisation and vice versa and how and if we are moving towards a global digital economy.

This study examines how two important situational factors (corporate diversification and business unit strategy) and two elements of a firm’s administrative system (accounting‐based budgetary controls and associated incentives) affect the presence of slack in business unit budgets in diversified firms. The relationships among these variables are established by building on theories from organizational economics, the information‐processing view of organizations, and organizational behavior. Data are collected from 37 firms and 153 business units within these firms. The main results indicate: that corporate diversification is positively associated with slack in business unit budgets; and that tight budgetary controls and high‐powered incentives effectively curtail such slack. However, diversification does not seem to drive corporate managers to rely more on these systems to reduce higher budgetary slack associated with diversification. This suggests: that diversified firms employ a conscious strategy of slack at the business unit level to reduce information‐processing needs at the top; or that the design of the internal management control system is a function of factors other than corporate diversification. With respect to the latter explanation, the results indicate that business units that pursue a differentiation strategy receive less tight budgetary controls, which leaves them with the necessary slack to effectively pursue the critical success factors on which their strategies are built.

Many educational organizations (universities, FE colleges, etc.) are introducing financial devolution to operating units. Follows up an earlier article by the same authors which introduced some of the major principles underlying the operation of financial responsibility centres in education. Explores what should be devolved, to whom, how and to what type of unit. Discusses some pitfalls of profit centre operation.

This study aims to expand the current knowledge of the Six Sigma approach in a period of time when there is little direct evidence of the need to improve the credit card account opening process. This is an important but neglected area of focus in the Six Sigma literature. This study explores the extent to which process improvement practices are extended to the credit card department.

A case study methodology is adopted in this study to facilitate an exploration of the implemented Six Sigma approach in the credit card department of a leading commercial bank. The process improvement tool used is the define, measure, analyze, improve and control (DMAIC) cycle.

The study’s results confirm that the Six Sigma approach improves the quality of the credit card account opening process. So, the Six Sigma approach can account for a reduced number of keying-in errors, resulting in better data accuracy and improved customer satisfaction.

The authors, in an attempt to render the study results more feasible for data collection, have chosen to focus on the process of the new accounts unit of the credit card department. Therefore, the authors have not taken into account the other units (e.g. transaction processing) of the same department.

The results of this study will be useful in persuading bank management to evaluate and implement the Six Sigma approach. Hence, this research will assist bank managers with replies to questions, such as: “What impact will Six Sigma have on process-centric improvement, such as the new accounts opening process of a credit card department?”

Within the literature on the Six Sigma practice, there is little research that focuses on the implementation of this particular toolset especially for credit card departments. This indicates a gap in the field. A new contribution to bridging that gap comes from the analysis of the results for the Six Sigma concept, which addresses the new accounts opening process.

This paper aims to understand why an expected enhanced role of accounting in Indonesian public hospitals has not occurred, although serial organizational changes and reform of hospital payment systems have taken place.

This study adopts a multiple case study research approach. It was carried out in two Indonesian public hospitals. Interviews were the main tool used for collecting data. The primary interviewees were the top managers, accountants and senior physicians in the hospitals surveyed.

Insights from the interviews revealed that the owners’ traditional role of funding deficits plus the conventional mindsets of managements and physicians who are only interested in health outcomes have hindered the infiltration of economic and accounting logic into the management of these two public hospitals. Consequently, the expected accounting innovations, i.e. an enhanced role of accounting in the hospitals’ daily activities did not emerge.

This case study is not a longitudinal study and the interviewees, particularly senior physicians, were selected based on their availability and willingness to participate in the interviews. Thus, the findings should be treated with caution.

An enhanced role of accounting and other accounting innovations would indicate that the hospitals are responding as expected to the institutional and financial reforms.

Contingency theory and institutional theory have been used together in this study which aims to not only discuss the reasons for accounting changes occurring or not occurring, but also to understand the motivations behind the accounting changes or lack of change. Thus, a more comprehensive understanding of accounting innovations is expected.