Disruption and transformation: The organisational evolution of an NGO

This paper explores how and why Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) governance was disrupted by changes in an organisation's internal and external environment. A detailed single case study of a large NGO operating in Sri Lanka is conducted. Data collection consists of semi-structured interviews, document analysis and participant and non-participant observation. Laughlin’s (1991) model of organisational change provides the theoretical foundation on which changes in the case NGO's interpretive schemes, design archetypes and organisational sub-systems are discussed. The changing of interpretive schemes and organisational sub-systems, in our case, was easier than changing design archetypes. Consequently, our paper introduces ‘protective reconfiguration’ as a new change pathway to Laughlin's (1991) model of organisational change. The findings suggest that the NGO's governance systems and processes are being moulded in ways that may not achieve the overall purpose of these organisations. Greater attention to evolving design archetypes is necessary in order to create more deliberative, fluid and less organisation-centric governance structures for NGOs operating in the policy-advocacy space.     

When science meets strategic realpolitik: The case of the Copenhagen UN climate change summit

This paper argues that the impasse over tackling climate change at the 2009 climate change summit is a result of the outcome of the prevailing power and politics at the summit. The paper discusses the sociological literature on power and notes that the failure of the summit illustrates the fragility of legitimacy and authority. The paper rehearses key parts of the chronology of the summit and argues that the politics of domination often prevail over the politics of legitimacy. Moreover, the way in which both science and politics have failed to legitimate the issue of climate change is explored. The paper closes with a discussion of what is required to fix the issue as legitimate and meriting serious action by major international agencies and economies.     

Social and environmental accounting,organisational change and management accounting: A processual view

Consistent with calls for in-depth studies of social and environmental accounting and reporting (SEAR) intervention (Bebbington, 2007, Fraser, 2012, Contrafatto, 2012), our paper focuses on the interrelationship between organisational change and SEAR practices, as well as the involvement of management accounting in such organisational dynamics. Drawing insight from both Laughlin (1991) and Burns and Scapens’ (2000) theoretical frameworks, we explore the processes of change through which SEAR practices become elevated to strategising status, in the context of broader organisational and extra-organisational developments, but we also illuminate how institutionalised assumptions of profit-seeking limit the extent to which broader sustainability concerns become infused into day-to-day business practice. Our paper highlights the importance of management accounting in facilitating and shaping the cumulative path of SEAR practices (and sustainability more generally); however, we also heed caution against uncritical reliance upon conventional management accounting tools. The following paper extends our understanding of SEAR practices as cumulative process over time, an awareness of the potential limits to such developments in profit-seeking organisations, and stresses a need to be circumspect when involving management accounting.     

Indigenous sustainable finance as a research field: A systematic literature review on indigenising ESG,sustainability and indigenous community practices

Sustainable finance research has come into its own as an established area in the finance literature. The increased awareness of sustainability and global concerns around environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues, particularly among institutional investors, has catalysed a shift towards greater research and publications in this area. Accompanying this is the emerging body of work being produced on indigenous investments and indigenous community practices. These nascent strands of literature tell a story of the shift that is taking place within the finance field. To chart this shift and create a harmonised view of these bodies of work, this paper conducts a systematic literature review of the significant nexus between sustainable investments and indigenous approaches to sustainability. We present a framework for conceptualising and characterising the various stands of literature and, in so doing, make the case for Indigenous Sustainable Finance (ISF) as a distinct disciplinary field. This paper argues that ISF is distinct from mainstream sustainable finance and other social and management sciences and constitutes a legitimate, well-defined sub-field of research in its own right.     

Justifying accounting change through global discourses and legitimation strategies. The case of the UK central government

Accounting has been viewed, especially through the lens of the recent managerial reforms, as a neutral technology that, in the hands of rational managers, can support effective and efficient decision-making. However, the introduction of new accounting practices can be framed in a variety of ways, from value-neutral procedures to ideologically charged instruments. Focusing on financial accounting, budgeting and performance management changes in the UK central government, and through extensive textual analysis and interviews in three government departments, this paper investigates: how accounting changes are discussed and introduced at the political level through the use of global discourses; and what strategies organisational actors subsequently use to talk about and legitimate such discourses at different organisational levels. The results show that in political discussions there is a consistency between the discourses (largely New Public Management) and the accounting-related changes that took place. The research suggests that a cocktail of legitimation strategies was used by organisational actors to construct a sense of the changes, with authorisation, often in combination with, at the very least, rationalisation strategies most widely utilised. While previous literature posits that different actors tend to use the same rhetorical sequences during periods of change, this study highlights differences at different organisational levels.     

Transformational change and the vacuum of performance measurement: How a story of success became a failure

Some local government organisations stand out in terms of their capability to adopt and use management accounting innovations and become a model for those struggling with issues such as performance measurement (PM). But what happens to the innovations if the organisation is forced into transformational change? This longitudinal case study is based on the theory that the use and impact of PM is influenced by (a) its contractibility and (b) how the performance management systems in place are configured and used. One conclusion is that transformational change can result in a vacuum of PM, even with a high degree of contractibility.     

Management accounting change in small technology companies: towards a mathematical model of the technology firm

The primary purpose of this paper is to explain management accounting (MA) change in 93 small Finnish technology firms in terms of their organizational characteristics and motivation patterns. Factor analysis identifies four motivation patterns among the companies. Hence four types of companies emerge called ‘change-oriented’, ‘stable and conservative’, ‘performance-contented’ and ‘discontent resourceless’ organizations. A mathematical model of the technology firm as an adaptive organism with a certain probability to survive, is constructed to obtain expectations for the differences in MA change between the identified types. The model shows that the MA systems (MASs), which help management in large organizations to identify directions for future action (for example, short-term budgeting) may be ineffective in small technology companies. The probability of the company’s survival is sensitive to the intensity of competition and cost efficiency. In an environment where an identified, innovative project cannot be undertaken with certainty, the length of the strategic planning period has a limited optimum level. Moreover, the four types of companies examined have significantly different motivation levels to change their MASs. The change-oriented company must improve its MASs remarkably to compensate for the large negative effect, especially, of high competition, whereas the stable and conservative company has little or no pressure for improvements in its MASs. The performance-contented company has no real motivation to change its MASs because there is no competition. But the discontent resourceless company, which functions in an atmosphere of high competition with shorter customer relationships, is compelled by its environment to adapt its MASs although it has, otherwise, low motivation for change and is acutely resource constrained. These expectations were supported by correlation and regression analyses applied to explore the relationship of the four types to MA change.     

Accounting logics, reconfiguration of ERP systems and the emergence of new accounting practices: A sociomaterial perspective

This paper extends our knowledge on how software-based accounting tools might work effectively within an organization. The empirical data that we focus on are events that unfolded following the introduction of a new ERP system at an Ivy League University. We describe a negotiation process that occurred after roll-out that resulted in a reconfiguration of the ERP to integrate some of the legacy functionalities that were familiar to organizational participants and which were considered by them to provide a more effective way to manage their finances. Our contribution to the literature is not only to show the importance of such post-roll-out modifications for creating a working information system, but also to extend previous accounts of non-linear accounting change processes by emphasizing how these modifications are dependent on the particular entanglement of users and technology (the sociomaterial assemblage) rather than either features of the technology or the agency of the humans involved. Moreover, our analysis of the case data suggests that management accounting in particular may not be easily captured in ERP packages, even where the technology architectures are supposedly designed for a particular industry. The case data also points to issues of affordability and the power of communities of practice as mediating the extent to which these familiar accounting logics may become integrated within the ERP system.     

On the interplay between environmental reporting and management accounting change

This paper investigates how environmental reporting (ER) and environment-related management accounting (EMA) practices may interact in the process of responding to disturbances of the natural environment (e.g., changes in environmental regulation, green consumerism, societal pressures for environmentally-responsible conduct). Based on data gathered in four Belgian case companies, we find that the emergence of an interplay between ER and EMA practices is related to the change pathways followed by these disturbances. Moreover, the strength of the environmental disturbances, top management commitment and the presence of an environmental champion are important contingent factors in understanding the development of a recursive relationship. Finally, the findings illustrate that an interplay between ER and EMA practices has the potential to foster or stifle organizational greening.     

Anticipatory policymaking in global venues: Policy change,adaptation, and the UNFCCC

The subfield of public policy depicts policymaking as reactive process wherein public officials respond to existing social problems. While this depiction holds true in many cases, it fails to account for instances where policy change occurs in anticipation of emerging threats or hazards. “Anticipatory problems” are projected to occur in the future, and it is the prospect of their occurring that generates policy debate. This paper examines the policymaking pattern engendered by anticipatory policy problems, highlighting the ways in which they challenge and support existing assumptions about the process of policy change. To illustrate this distinctive dynamic, this paper will present a case study examining the evolving debate over climate change adaptation policy within United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).     

The relationship between risk experience and risk response: a study of farmers and climate change

Within the existing literature, the role of experience of risk on attitudinal and behavioural risk response has been relatively neglected. Recent research that draws on the psychological distance of climate change as a concept notes the importance of local, significant experience as a driver for encouraging appropriate response. The experience of flooding was used as the stimulus in this paper, and emphasis placed on whether direct and/or indirect experience of flood risk is associated with different responses to climate change risk. In order to explore the relationship between climate change risk experience and response in the form of on-farm mitigation and adaptation, this paper draws on a case study of farmers in England, many of whom have experienced flooding. Results from a quantitative survey undertaken with 200 farmers in Gloucestershire, England are discussed. Statistical analysis found experience of flooding to be significantly associated with a heightened concern for climate change. Although also finding an association between experience and behavioural response, the sample were most likely to be taking adaptive behaviour as part of normal practice, with factors such as lack of overall concern for climate change risk and absence of information and advice likely to be the main barriers to action. Risk communication needs to further emphasise the connection between climate change and extreme weather events to allow for farmers to perceive climate change as a relevant and locally salient phenomenon, and subsequent tailored information and advice should be offered to clearly illustrate the best means of on-farm response. Where possible, emphasis must be placed on actions that also enable adaptation to other, more immediate risks which farmers in this study more readily exhibited concern for, such as market volatility.     

Variable long-term trends in mineral prices: The ongoing tug-of-war between exploration,depletion, and technological change

This paper explores the use of low-frequency band-pass filters for describing long-run trends in real mineral commodity prices. This approach has the advantage of allowing long-run trend rates to evolve gradually over time, rather than assuming that they are constant (perhaps with occasional structural breaks) over time. This is a flexible way of capturing the ongoing ‘tug of war’ between exploration, depletion, and technological change.Over 100 mineral and commodities, stretching back to the late 19th or early 20th century, are considered. The variety of LR trends is astonishing, but very few increase monotonically, contrary to the prediction of the basic Hotelling model. Some decline monotonically (as predicted by Prebisch and Singer); some have the U-shaped pattern predicted by Pindyck (1978), Heal (1981) and Slade (1982). Others have changed direction up to three times in the period since 1900. The tug of war continues with exhaustion nowhere in sight.     

Exploring the relationship between strategic performance measurement systems and managers' creativity: the mediating role of psychological empowerment and organisational learning

This study explores whether strategic performance measurement systems (SPMSs) are linked to managers' creativity through two mediating variables—organisational learning and psychological empowerment. Using data collected from 92 senior production managers in Australian manufacturing organisations, the study tests these links using a partial least squares structural model. The results from the structural model indicate that SPMSs are indirectly related to the managers' creativity through organisational learning and psychological empowerment. The study also finds that organisational learning is both directly related to creativity, and indirectly related to psychological empowerment. Further, the potential implications for empirical research are discussed.     

Climate change,risk factors and stock returns: A review of the literature

This article reviews how climate change could be considered an additional source of market risk. I discuss the types of data needed to analyse the climate risk drivers that shape the dynamics of the equity market. I present empirical evidence at both the macro and micro-level, analysing whether and to what extent the equity market prices climate change and related risks. Top-down and bottom-up approaches are compared to understand which climate risk is more likely to affect the cross-section of stock returns, both within and across sectors. Emphasis is also placed on investors’ beliefs about climate change risks, and the related asset pricing implications are analysed. I conclude by illustrating further directions for both empirical and theoretical research in the field of climate finance.     

Management accounting systems change and departmental performance: the influence of managerial information and task uncertainty

Despite the proliferation of new management accounting techniques amidst pressures of organizational and global change, the issue of changes in firm-wide management accounting and control systems (MACSs) has largely been ignored in the research literature. This study explores the indirect effect of MACSs change on departmental performance for a cross-sectional sample of 232 medium-sized Singaporean firms. It is hypothesized that MACSs change affects performance but not directly. Instead, this relationship is mediated by managerial-relevant information (MRI) that is impacted by MACSs change, which, in turn, enhances performance. Task uncertainty is expected to moderate the intervening linkages; specifically, the latter are anticipated to strengthen under conditions of more task variability and task difficulty and, thus, augment the indirect effect of MACSs change on performance. The results offer support for the positive indirect effect of improving departmental performance from more MRI, triggered by MACSs change. Although not large, the indirect effect is strengthened when task variability and task difficulty are high. Overall, the findings are consistent with the stated purposes of management accounting that are embedded in normative definitions, and which are relied upon to motivate the framework for analysis.     

The role of change agents and imitation in the diffusion of an idea: charge and discharge accounting

Medieval charge and discharge accounting was the most prevalent accounting system of its time. The first medieval charge and discharge system can be identified in the English Exchequer about 1110. This paper argues that the ideas behind the Exchequer were gradually diffused both internationally and nationally. This paper charts the export of charge and discharge systems to other European Exchequers, to monasteries and bishoprics, to lay estates, to manorial accounting, to guilds, boroughs, universities and parishes. From a single high status source at the start of the 12th century, charge and discharge accounting came to be imitated through mimetic and normative institutional isomorphism by a wide range of lower status medieval institutions by the late 15th century. In the first phase of diffusion, certain key individuals of wealth and power are identified as change agents. In the second phase, individuals, and accounting and estate management texts played an important role in the diffusion. The role of geographical proximity and accidents of history is also explored.     

Risk regulation,community pressure and the use of management accounting in managing climate change risk: Australian evidence

This exploratory study is amongst the first to investigate how companies perceive the regulation of carbon emissions and the pressure exerted by the community in an environment characterised by risk and uncertainty. Semi-structured interviews were conducted among 39 executives who were directly involved in carbon emissions management in 18 large listed Australian companies. Consistent with Prospect Theory, we find that decision-makers are threat biased and are more likely to take immediate actions when climate change issues are framed as threats as opposed to opportunities. From the interview data, it is seen that managers use management accounting techniques as a risk management tool in mitigating risks associated climate change issues. Furthermore, this use of management accounting appears to be driven primarily by the protection of economic interests, regulatory pressure and reputational pressure. The study provides insights into how perceptions of climate change uncertainties and external pressure for disclosure of emissions information influence companies to use management accounting in managing climate change risk.     

The interaction between opening call auctions and ongoing trade: Evidence from the NYSE

We investigate the impact that the opening batch has on trading for the remainder of the day and what impact the prior day's trading has on the subsequent day's open. Traders have an interest in these trading impacts as their trades may cluster around opening and closing time periods. We find that the larger the volume in the opening batches, the greater the volume across the day. We also find the prior day's volume being positively related to the subsequent day's opening volume. Combined, these results suggest a continuing pattern of trade volume rolling from one day to the next. Additionally, we find that the spread in the continuous market can be partially attributed to the price change in the opening batch. We also find evidence of opening trade price reversals. Combined with the absence of price reversals following the opening trade, we conclude that the opening process may be more efficient at handling information than the continuous market.     

Exploring the interaction between technology and morality in the field of genetic susceptibility testing: A scenario study

With the rise of genomics promises and concerns have emerged about future possibilities for screening of genetic susceptibilities to common diseases in the population. In this article we start from the assumption that for a better understanding of the future ethical implications of genetic susceptibility screening we need to address the interaction between technological and moral developments in society. We introduce a techno-ethical scenario approach and show how it may help us to explore more systematically potential future interactions between technological and moral developments in the field of genetic susceptibility screening. The first step is a historical account of population screening, focussing on the ways in which emerging practices of (genetic) screening have been mediated by an evolving moral landscape in our society. Based on this history we present a techno-ethical scenario of the future, showing how technological developments may shape conditions in our society in which the introduction and use of genetic susceptibility tests more and more become a matter of private decisions, reinforcing claims to individual self-determination as a deeply rooted value in the moral landscape of our society.     

US Fiscal Sustainability and the Causality Relationship between Government Expenditures and Revenues: A New Approach Based on Quantile Cointegration

This paper first aims to reinvestigate the issue of US fiscal sustainability by using the quantile cointegration approach proposed by Xiao (2009 and 2012). Our empirical evidence indicates a quantile‐dependent cointegrating relationship between government expenditures and revenues. In addition, this paper examines the long‐run causality relationship between expenditures and revenues by using the vector error‐correction (VEC) model with coefficients based on the different quantiles. Findings from the long‐run Granger‐causality analyses support the spend‐and‐tax hypothesis. Our investigation suggests that the government should show more discretion in increasing expenditures in the long run. Moreover, budget deficit reduction can only be achieved through reductions in government expenditures.