1,721,065 research outputs found
Sostenibilità, cambiamento climatico e sistemi di controllo aziendali
No full textL’importanza di perseguire uno sviluppo sostenibile e l’urgenza di rispondere alle istanze poste dal cambiamento climatico è un tema ormai chiaro a gran parte della società anche grazie al costante lavoro svolto dalla comunità scientifica internazionale negli ultimi 50 anni, a partire dal rapporto The Limits to Growth del Club di Roma.
Tuttavia, nonostante le solide evidenze scientifiche disponibili, la politica e gli attori economici sono stati per molto (troppo) tempo recalcitranti all’idea di prendere decisioni e compiere azioni di cambiamento trasformativo al fine di considerare l’ambiente come un bene collettivo da proteggere e non come una materia prima da strutturare per finalità economiche e di profitto.
Il libro, partendo da questo assunto, si pone l’obiettivo di evidenziare che cosa possono fare le aziende per contribuire alla mitigazione del cambiamento climatico mediante una crescente e costante attenzione alla riduzione delle emissioni di gas climalteranti in relazione alle scelte e alle attività poste in essere. Il libro si pone come un elemento di discussione, in parte critico, rispetto all’urgenza di attuare azioni più radicali. Dall’altro canto, presenta una possibile sintesi del tanto materiale presente in letteratura fornendo alcuni spunti per un approccio più interdisciplinare allo studio del rapporto tra sostenibilità, cambiamento climatico e aziende
Micro-processes of justification and critique in a water sustainability controversy: examining the establishment of moral legitimacy through accounting
Full text linkTo analyse the micro-processes of moral justification and critique, this paper explores how managers combine different moral principles through the use of accounting, in order to establish the moral legitimacy of water sustainability practices. Drawing on the Economies of Worth framework and based on an exploratory case study of a water utility, this paper reveals four micro-processes of justification and critique - neutralising, enlisting, summoning and sensegiving - that reflect the different ways of moral legitimation mobilised by the managers. It also reveals the presence of different orders of worth which refer to the market, industrial, civic and green moral principles, and the dynamic role of accounting as a test of worth used to combine and bring them together. The findings suggest that moral legitimacy is not necessarily a dichotomous variable, but that it operates on a continuum established by managers and negotiated through the use of accounting. The paper illuminates the role of accounting in the unfolding of moral legitimation processes, and advances the micro-analysis of moral legitimacy in sustainability accounting research. It also contributes to sustainability disclosure research by showing that external disclosure reflects internal deliberations, and together they participate in the establishing of moral legitimacy
A Comparative Analysis of Human Capital Disclosure in Annual Reports and Sustainability Reports
No full textParker (2007) and Beattie and Thomson (2010) argue that despite exten-sive research, the investigation of voluntary intellectual capital disclosure and its categories is still a main topic in the external research agenda and that its understanding is a key aspect in the accounting profession’s future. To extend this kind of analysis, more comparative studies confronting dif-ferent types of documents should be undertaken to assess and verify their similarities, differences, and links (Striukova et al., 2008). In conjunction with this discussion, this research aims to compare the extent and quality of human capital disclosure between a sample of 52 annual reports and a sample of 52 sustainability reports published by listed Italian companies. The main purpose is to contribute to the debate concerning the supply of human capital information through different public channels in light of the importance of human capital for the external evaluation of a company and its legitimation. The chapter also provides some speculation regarding the typology and quality of human capital information disclosed by sustainabil-ity reports and human capital information used by financial market agents in order to verify the presence of a hypothetical coherence between the two classes of information
Contextual variables affecting sustainability accounting: results from a partial least square approach
No full textManagement control for extraordinary and extreme events
No full textThe COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need for organisations to manage risks and uncertainties organically and systematically to mitigate the impacts of extraordinary and extreme events on their activities and decisions. In response, organisations have adopted several actions to deal with them. This chapter presents a first review of the role of management control in guiding organisations’ responses to extraordinary and extreme events. The chapter shows how management control has been mobilised to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic through a comparison with previous financial crises. The chapter also presents some reflections concerning management control and organisational resilience, an important and unexplored area of research, to understand further and explain the role of management control in contemporary organisations and society
Pandemic and management accounting change in the business context: Empirical evidence from Italy
No full textThis chapter investigates management accounting change in the context of company responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. The analysis focuses on the technical typology of management accounting change through a qualitative study of Italian companies. A management accounting framework enables analysis of the change in terms of addition, replacement, modification and abandonment. The empirical materials show different technical changes, particularly output and operational modifications, to monitor better crisis-related uncertainty and for greater relevance of management accounting information. The chapter helps to reflect on managing unexpected events from a management accounting perspective and the related decision-making support. It contributes to analysing how accounting changes in the context of extreme crises
Coping with the COVID-19 pandemic: the technical, moral and facilitating role of management control
Full text linkPurpose: The study analyses how management control supports the organisation's response to the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown. Design/methodology/approach: Video interviews with top and middle-level managers who were directly involved in handling the response to the COVID-19 crisis in late winter and spring 2020 form the empirical base. The object-of-control framework and the distinction between organic and mechanistic management controls inform the exploratory case analysis of a large food retail cooperative in Italy. Findings: Both organic and mechanistic management control mechanisms enabled an immediate response and management of the crisis. The use of cultural, action and results controls supported employees' health and safety coordination, a tight monitoring of financial performance and social interventions in support of the local community. Originality/value: The study provides original exploratory insights on the use and role of management control in the context of an unprecedented emergency and an unplanned setting (i.e. a pandemic crisis), which is an under-investigated topic in the accounting literature. The study shows how management control operated, linking moral and technical aspects as well as facilitating organisational adaptation and pandemic effects mitigation
La sostenibilità ambientale in azienda: quale relazione tra disclosure volontaria e gestione interna?.
No full textLa dimensione della sostenibilità ambientale all’interno dell’agire d’impresa rap-presenta un tema di crescente importanza, soprattutto considerando le politiche di comunicazione ambientale che le aziende adottano. Il presente lavoro analizza il rapporto tra “comunicazione volontaria ambientale” e “gestione ambientale inter-na” al fine di capire se e come le due dimensioni siano associate e coerenti tra loro. La gestione ambientale interna è intesa, in particolare, come l’attenzione dell’azienda nei confronti della sostenibilità ambientale nell’ambito dei sistemi de-cisionali interni e di attuazione di pratiche di sostenibilità. Dal punto di vista teori-co, lo studio individua quattro categorie rappresentative di possibili associazioni, avvalendosi di una matrice alto-basso rappresentante le due dimensioni indicate e definita in conformità a precedenti studi. Il campione di analisi è rappresentato da quarantaquattro aziende operanti in settori considerati ad alto impatto ambientale. La ricerca fa uso di un questionario per quanto riguarda la dimensione della gestione interna mentre calcola un indice di disclosure per ciò che attiene la dimensione esterna. I risultati mostrano una prevalenza della gestione ambientale interna rispetto alle pratiche di comunicazione volontaria. Questa ultima dimensione risulta subordinata e meno importante rispetto alla gestione interna. L’associazione tra le due dimensioni è presente solo per un sottoinsieme di aziende che sono anche le più attente alla sostenibilità ambientale
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