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Most small businesses today could probably benefit from a management audit of the firm's long‐term financial affairs. In large corporations, internal auditors generally have free rein to audit all operations—including the activities of the corporate treasurer and the controller's department. Such audits involve not only the financial aspects of operations, but the day‐to‐day operating aspects as well. Internal audits of operations are typically called operational audits in the United States and value‐for‐money audits in the countries of the British empire. “Value‐for‐money audits” is probably the best name because the objective of the auditors is to point out ways that a department can save money or enhance revenues. Now it would be nice if small businesses had internal auditors to conduct value‐for‐money audits, but such is not the case. Most small companies do not have internal auditors. However, there is another alternative. The owner or manager of a small business can conduct the audit on sort of a do‐it‐yourself basis. Although every department could possibly benefit from such an audit, it is the long‐term financial management of the organization that might profit the most from a value‐for‐money audit.

An operational audit (or value‐for‐money audit) is an organized search for ways of improving efficiency and effectiveness. Although internal auditors have traditionally performed most operational audits, such audits are also conducted by external auditors and by company managers who wish to make self‐audits. Whoever performs an operational audit, the objective is to assist managers in performing their daily functions more effectively and economically. In effect, an operational audit is an early warning system for the detection of potentially destructive problems. Traditionally, operational audits have been conducted by means of a questionnaire interview of departmental employees. Virtually all large companies conduct operational audits in their major production and service departments. However, working capital management has often been ignored in these audits. Perhaps this oversight is caused by the view that the controllership and treasury functions are high level departments that are not susceptible to scrutiny by internal auditors. Alternatively, the oversight may be attributable to the feeling that there is little standardization of duties among controllers and treasurers in the management of working capital. Whatever the reason, this article is intended to end the oversight. An operational audit can lead to better management of working capital in the same way that it can lead to better management of a production area. The questionnaire in Exhibit 1 can be used by internal auditors, or by a treasurer who merely wants to perform a self‐audit of his or her own department's efficiency and effectiveness.

This investigation/report/reflection was motivated largely by the occasion of the first Centre for Social and Environmental Accounting Research (CSEAR) “Summer School” in North America.¹ But its roots reach down as well to other recent reflection/investigation pieces, in particular, Mathews (1997), Gray (2002, 2006), and Deegan and Soltys (2007). The last of these authors note (p. 82) that CSEAR Summer Schools were initiated in Australasia, at least partly as a means to spur interest and activity in social and environmental accounting (SEA) research. So, too, was the first North American CSEAR Summer School.² We believe, therefore, that it is worthwhile to attempt in some way to identify where SEA currently stands as a field of interest within the broader academic accounting domain in Canada and the United States.³ As well, however, we believe this is a meaningful time for integrating our views on the future of our chosen academic sub-discipline with those of Gray (2002), Deegan and Soltys (2007), and others. Thus, as the title suggests, we seek to identify (1) who the SEA researchers in North America are; (2) the degree to which North American–based accounting research journals publish SEA-related research; and (3) where we, the SEA sub-discipline within North America, might be headed. We begin with the who.