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Undergraduate courses: Auditing, Leadership, Management accounting. Postgraduate courses: Leadership, Management accounting.

Auditing, Leadership, Management accounting

This case documents the journey of a professional accountancy organisation, namely, the Malaysian Institute of Accountants (MIA) and document the MIA’s journey on the establishment of digital blueprint for the accounting profession in Malaysia including some major milestone in innovating audit evidence-gathering technique by introducing e-confirm for auditing bank confirmation in Malaysia. This case highlights the significant role played by a lady chief executive officer (CEO) in embarking into the digitalisation of the accountancy profession and practice in Malaysia. While the ultimate objective of digital blueprint is to transform the accounting and auditing practices in Malaysia, the CEO has led by example by embedding digitalisation within MIA’s practices itself.

The learning outcome of this paper are as follows: to develop students’ understanding on the right attitudes, skills and characters that a successful leader should possess in contemporary business environment by focusing on dilemma and stereo-typing faced by women leaders; to develop the students’ understanding on the changes in business environment particularly the rise of digital technology that affecting the ways in which accounting functions in organisations; to encourage students to be aware that technical accounting knowledge is just one of the key success factors in the career of a professional accountant. The case offer insight into accountants’ role in digital environment and the development needed for accounting profession; to demonstrate how auditing process can benefit from the advancement in technology; and to encourage critical discussion on the development of accounting profession in Malaysia. The case aims to develop students’ critical discussion on the roles of MIA as a regulator of accounting profession and to appreciate historical development of accounting profession in Malaysia. The case also aims to encourage students to realise the existence of other professional accounting bodies, accounting practitioners and academic accountants, and together with MIA, they play significant role in shaping the accounting profession in Malaysia.

Teaching notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.

The case has a strong implication on the role of effective leaders in ensuring that significant efforts involved in digitalisation journal, a vital need for the accountancy professional to continue to be a relevant profession, is a success.

CSS 1: Accounting and Finance.

Women leadership, Digitalisation, Professional accountancy organisation, Electronic bank confirmation, Malaysia

The purpose of this paper is to systematically review the literature on corporate governance and sustainability integration in identifying the main rigidity, infirmity and gaps in the current literature, and also to mention future research paths.

A systematic literature review of existing international papers is used through quantitative and qualitative approach by selecting 27 articles published in Scopus.

The review suggests although integration of governance into sustainability is interpreted differently in a geographical area, vision, mission and leadership are the most significant drivers of sustainability framework dealing corporate governance. Despite the limitation which is related to the choice of number and type of keywords and journals, outcomes and the interpretation, generalization and application of results, sustainability frameworks suggest a number of avenues for investors, policy makers and future market scenario which will increase the efficiency of companies.

This research uses limited number of reviews by the common features of Scopus search as previous studies. This review study reflects corporate governance to sustainability models and provides opportunities to researchers for a more in-depth investigation into the theoretical advancement and joint work of sustainability and corporate governance which better inform strategies and implementations of governmental structures.

This paper undertakes a significant thorough systematic review for sustainability integration with corporate governance literature. It gives a written work review and reference index from1995 to 2017, useful for both academics and professionals.

This paper aims to discuss the knowledge levels, attitudes and behaviours regarding the concept of sustainable development among pre-university programme educators, as well as the potential barriers and opportunities they face in adopting the concept of sustainable development in the teaching of the pre-university level chemistry module at a public university in Malaysia.

A survey was conducted with eight educators of a pre-university programme at a public university located in Selangor, Malaysia. This pre-university programme exposes students to advanced courses in science, which are very much like first-year university courses for candidates who are interested in gaining admission to degree programmes. For this study, the focus was on chemistry educators only. The collected data were analysed through descriptive analysis following which interviews were conducted with the respondents.

In general, the educators have good knowledge and attitudes towards the concept of sustainable development. Moreover, their projected knowledge (K), attitude (A) and behaviour (B) focus more on environmental dimensions, as opposed to other sustainable development dimensions. While the integration of the concept of sustainable development in chemistry teaching is restricted by a few barriers, such as content-based learning, lack of guidebooks related to sustainable development and an overcrowded curriculum, positive responses from the chemistry educators indicate that there are opportunities to implement sustainable chemistry concepts in the pre-university chemistry module.

The present study was conducted with several limitations; the data were obtained from a small sample size at an institute located within a public university. The respondents of this research consisted of only three existing chemistry educators and five administrators who are also educators. Further studies about sustainable chemistry teaching should include samples from other public and private universities.

This paper is instrumental in assisting the Ministry of Education, administrators, as well as educators within the pre-university sector to shift their goals towards sustainable chemistry teaching to achieve success in education for sustainable development.

This paper aims to investigate the knowledge, attitude and behaviour of foundation chemistry learners concerning the sustainable development concept.

Qualitative and quantitative studies were conducted. Atlas.ti software was used to analyse the chemistry curriculum based on selected themes and sub-themes. A survey was carried out involving 132 chemistry learners. The chemistry learners were students from a foundation programme in a local university located in Selangor, Malaysia. The collected data were analysed using SPSS 21.0 involving descriptive and inferential statistics.

Document analysis on the chemistry curriculum shows that water is the theme most covered in the chemistry learners’ textbook, as compared to other themes. In general, the chemistry learners have good knowledge and attitude concerning the sustainable development concept. However, their knowledge and attitude do not reflect in their behaviour as an individual, as well as in the classroom. Moreover, their knowledge, attitude and behaviour focus more on environmental dimension, as compared to other sustainable development dimensions.

This paper is instrumental in assisting educators to assess how chemistry learners perceive sustainable development, and this may help to bring about changes to improve chemistry teaching and learning processes towards education for sustainable development.

This paper is an original and novel research paper which is first conducted on sustainable development concept in chemistry curriculum in Malaysia.

This paper aims to explain how companies in the region of Arab countries respond to the institutional diffusion of a new communication genre like corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports.

Analysis of the features, content and language of CSR reports published by listed companies in the region, to classify the genres of these reports and infer results about ways of companies’ interaction with newly institutionalized genre.

Three distinct genres are identified: “sustainability reports genre,” “professional CSR report genre” and “light CSR report genre.” When companies interact with institutionally diffused genres, they either adopt them and re-enforce their distinctiveness, mix them with elements from other genres so their distinctiveness will be diluted, or produce the old and established genres under the new name so the new genre will lose its distinctiveness.

The proposed classification of CSR report genres and ways of companies’ interaction with new genres are original and open new horizons for research in social and environmental accounting and corporate communication fields.

This study aims to assess the current state of research on the use of sustainability balanced scorecards (SBSCs), as they relate to environmental performance-related outcomes. It also seeks to present a conceptual framework proposing relationships between SBSC and environmental performance.

This paper conducts a systematic literature review of articles published in double-blind peer-reviewed journals that are listed on Scopus and/or Web of Science databases.

The first part of the paper reveals that two architectures of SBSC appear to be dominant in the literature (SBSC-4 where sustainability parameters are integrated with the four perspectives of the balanced scorecard and SBSC-5 where sustainability is shown as an additional standalone fifth perspective). The next part of the paper presents a conceptual model relating SBSC as decision-making tools to environmental performance outcomes. The paper also indicates that SBSC knowledge mediates the above relationships. Furthermore, based on the theory of expert competence, the presence of experts possibly moderates the relationship between SBSC architecture and environmental performance outcomes.

The literature indicates a lack of consensus on establishing a clear linkage on the relationship between SBSC architecture and environmental performance outcomes. As a result, a holistic conceptual framework where SBSC knowledge acts as a mediator and presence of experts as a moderator may be able to provide a more consistent relationship between SBSC architecture and environmental performance outcomes.

The conceptual framework proposed provides factors to be considered by decision makers, for effective outcomes when aiming to achieve environmental stewardship objectives.

Environmental performance by business organisations have come under close scrutiny of stakeholders. As a result, the holistic model proposed in the current study may pave the path for decision-makers to achieve superior environmental outcomes, leading to greater satisfaction of stakeholders such as the communities that are impacted by the business operations of an organisation.

This is the first paper to propose a model for future research regarding the link between SBSC and environmental performance outcomes – with expert managers acting as moderators and SBSC knowledge acting as a mediator.

In Malaysia, research indicates that there is an interest amongst the stakeholders, namely, administrators and academicians to be engaged in education for sustainable development (SD), but it is rarely implemented as a part of the higher education curriculum due to various barriers. This paper aims to develop a framework for integrating SD concepts into the chemistry curriculum, using a case study approach.

This study was conducted at a local university located in Selangor, Malaysia, offering a foundation programme to students between 17 to 18 years of age. Data was collected using a qualitative approach that involved 12 experts as informants. The collected data was analysed via three coding stages, namely, open coding, category coding and thematic encoding using Atlas.ti 7.0 software.

The research revealed that six aspects contribute to the integration of SD concepts into the chemistry curriculum, namely, educational policy, awareness, resources, curriculum, pedagogical approach and stakeholders’ engagement. The proposed framework was formulated by considering these aspects.

The findings of this study can be used as a guide to facilitate the integration of SD concepts into the chemistry curriculum. It is expected to encourage the involvement of more teachers in adopting sustainable chemistry teaching.

Prior literature on talent management (TM) in the audit setting has suggested several practices that may affect auditors’ performance. However, the study is limited in terms of a measurable set of comprehensive constructs of TM in the audit setting, as well as the impact of comprehensive TM constructs on auditors’ performance. Thus, the purpose of this study is to examine TM practices perceived to be important by auditors for auditors’ performance.

Data were obtained from 307 survey questionnaires received from auditors of large- as well as small- and medium-sized firms.

The study respondents perceived TM attributes related to supervision and review practices as the most vital for auditors’ performance. This category was followed by attributes related to ethics management practices along with training and development. The findings reveal that respondents generally perceived lower significance for attributes pertaining to work–life balance (WLB) and establishing a TM policy for auditors’ performance. While both top management and staff members of audit firms regarded WLB and establishing a TM policy to be of lower significance, top management placed greater importance on attributes related to ethics management, while staff perceived training and development attributes to be more critical.

This study examined a comprehensive set of TM practices (establishing a TM policy, recruitment, ethics management, training and development, supervision and review, remuneration, WLB and succession planning) and assessed the perceptions of audit practitioners on the significance of these practices on auditors’ performance.

This study aims to explore the conflicting issues of carbon accounting and trading practices in China through the lens of agonistic democracy.

Based on a framework of three interrelated levels, this study explores emitting entity carbon accounting debates and discussions in mitigating climate change. Interview data were collected from 20 emitting entity participants and external auditors.

This study identifies irreconcilable conflicts between emitting entities and the government in carbon accounting and trading activities. Under the strong influence of government power, emitting entities portray themselves as “responsible” and “legitimate” state-owned enterprises. This study further identifies possible democratic spaces and reveals the potential for agonistic discourse and a fallacy of “consensus” and monologues in institutional space. If the emitting entity and government can overcome their participation challenges, this would significantly facilitate vibrant and agonistic discourse in carbon activities and pave the way for democratic spaces.

This study demonstrates the potential and limitations of applying agonistic democracy and the significance of participation in institutional spaces in government-led carbon accounting and trading issues. It enriches prior research on promoting democratic participation in carbon accounting from the agonistic democracy perspective.

This study aims to explore the preparers’ perceptions of sustainability reporting as a distinct voluntary corporate reporting practice in the Middle East. It links these perceptions to the influences of local and global institutional contexts and how companies respond to them.

The study is informed by a discursive institutionalism theoretical framework that incorporates concepts such as multiple institutional logics, hybridity in social practice and interpretive role of social agents. Its empirical findings are built on seven interviews with officials involved in the practice to explore their perception of sustainability reports.

Sustainability reporting is not understood and perceived in the same way among reporting companies in the Middle East. The difference in perception is linked to the scope of operations of the company, whether it is global or local. The results provide evidence supporting the theoretical framework. Different institutional logics are identified that interact at the structure level to influence sustainability reporting practice, and companies act at the agency level by selecting from the institutional influences what match their interests and priorities. Consequently, the practice itself will be hybrid and will include various ways and forms of reporting.

The study contributes to knowledge about how global business practices are adopted by companies in the developing countries.