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This paper draws on the case of a multinational energy company to explore the role played by management control systems (MCSs) in enacting governance policies at the local (subsidiary) level.

This research mobilizes the literature on governmentality to interpret MCSs as technologies of government that can be drawn upon to translate governance policies into practice. In particular, the authors discuss this process by interpreting “governance” as an epistemic object, that is an object that generates knowledge because of its inherent incompleteness and abstract nature.

The paper shows how MCSs act as technical objects insofar they attract, bind and engage local subsidiary managers in the generation of knowledge about governance policies (i.e. the epistemic object) set at the global level, thereby enacting these policies locally.

The findings have practical implications by showing how subsidiary managers engage with MCSs to translate and implement broader governance policies in their daily activities.

This research contributes to the accounting literature on governmentality by showing the role of MCSs as technologies that enact governance at the local level through the process of knowledge generation that these technologies enable. Such knowledge is triggered by the engagement between different participating subjects, attracted by MCSs in the attempt to define governance in practice.

Although accounting and reporting visualisations (i.e. graphs, maps and grids) are often used to veil organisations’ untransparent actions, these practices perform irrespectively of their ability to represent facts. In this research, the authors explore accounting and reporting visualisations beyond their persuasive and representational purpose.

By building on previous research on the rhetoric of visualisations, the authors illustrate how the design of accounting visualisations within integrated reports engages managers in a recursive process of knowledge construction, interrogation, reflection and speculation on what sustainable value creation means. The authors articulate the theoretical framework by developing a longitudinal field study in International Fashion Company, a medium-sized company operating in the fashion industry.

This research shows that accounting and reporting visualisations do not only contribute to creating unclear and often contradicting representations of organisations’ sustainable performance but, at the same time, “open up” and support managers’ unfolding search for “sustainable value” by reducing its unknown meaning into known and understandable categories. The inconsistencies and imperfections that accounting and reporting visualisations leave constitute the conditions of possibility for the interrogation of the unknown to happen in practice, thus augmenting managers’ questioning, reflections and speculation on what sustainable value means.

This study shows that accounting and reporting visualisations can represent good practices (the authors are not saying a “solution”) through which managers can re-appreciate the complexities of measuring and defining something that is intrinsically unknown and unknowable, especially in contexts where best practices have not yet consolidated into a norm. Topics such as climate change and sustainable development are out there and cannot be ignored, cannot be reduced through persuasive accounts and, therefore, need to be embraced.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the enabling role of accounting and reporting practices as discourses about sustainability unfold inside organizations. In particular, the authors investigate how managers attempt to connect the concept of “sustainability” to their specific experience, as they seek to make sustainability meaningful (i.e. filling it with unfolding meaning) through accounting and within particular discursive spaces.

The authors rely upon the case of LOGIC, a large international oil and gas company operating in more than 70 countries worldwide. The authors analyze the evolution of discourses concerning sustainability inside the company, as well as the changing accounting and reporting practices, with a particular focus on integrated reporting.

The authors show that accounting and reporting practices (such as integrated reporting within LOGIC) provide the conditions for “sustainability”—as a discursive concept—to become meaningful, while evolving themselves as they are attached to this concept. They do so by enabling individuals (the management team within LOGIC) to connect their diverse experiences and aspirations to the concept of sustainability. Rather than filling sustainability with stable meaning, the authors observed that individuals are attracted by the gaps left by accounting representations, leading to the development of new practices and unfolding meanings within specific discursive spaces.

Most of the literature on sustainability accounting and reporting practices concentrate on the need for these practices to mirror what companies do about sustainability. Differently, the authors add to the very few studies on “aspirational” reporting that have emphasized the enabling effects of the gap between what companies say and do about sustainability. The authors do so by demonstrating that accounting is “aspirational” not only because it stimulates corporate efforts toward an imaginary better future, but also because it attracts managers’ particular aspirations through its representational gap. The authors show that this gap enables meaningful connections between individuals (their particular experience and aspirations) and “sustainability,” bringing this concept into their specific discursive space and, thereby, leading to the emergence of new practices.

This paper follows the call for more future-oriented practices within organisations, particularly in relation to how they respond to growing concerns about Earth’s sustainability and life on the Planet. This study aims to explore how the data produced by major scientific projects in the Space sector can support future-oriented accountability practices by enabling both a projection and an imagination of a more or less distant future, thereby feeding into accountability practices.

We rely upon a multiple interpretative case study analysis and interview-based data from three main organisations in the Earth observation (EO) value chain: an International Space Company, a Research Centre of Energy Transition and a European Private Equity Firm.

We find that future-oriented accountability practices can be fed by a creative assemblage of scientific data provided by Space sector’s programmes with different sources of knowledge and information. These data are embedded into a broader accountability system, connecting different actors through a “value chain”: from the data providers, gathering data from Space, to the primary users, working on data modelling and analysis, to the end users, such as local authorities, public and private organisations. The predictive data and expertise exchanged throughout the value chain feed into future-oriented accountability efforts across different time-space contexts, as a projected and imagined, more or less distant, future informs the actions and accounts in the present.

This research extends the literature on the time dimension of accountability. We show how a creative assemblage of scientific data with different sources of knowledge and information –such as those provided by Space sector’s programmes and EO data – enable organisations to both project the present into (a more or less distant) future and imagine this future differently while taking responsibility, and accounting for, what could be done and desired in response to it. We also contribute to the limited literature on accountability in the Space sector by examining the intricate accountability dynamics underpinning the relationships among the different actors in the EO data value chain.

This study aims to develop a framework to systematize the emerging literature on integrated thinking and offers empirical insights on how integrated thinking has been practiced within an organization. The paper also introduces the contributions that compose the special issue “exploring integrated thinking in action: theoretical interpretations and evidence from the field” and outlines avenues for future research.

The paper critically reviews the literature on integrated thinking and proposes a framework that classifies prior studies into three areas, namely, integrated thinking and sustainable strategies; integrating thinking in practice; the concept and measures of integrated thinking. The study also provides an illustration of the ways in which integrated thinking has been adopted by a European energy company to shape and execute its purpose-driven strategy, as well as the benefits that have emerged. The paper uses the framework developed from the literature to introduce the contributions of the special issue and to suggest future research opportunities.

The study shows that while the literature on integrated thinking is still in its infancy, the evidence emerging from contemporary organizations supports empirical-driven research and stimulates a variety of theoretical and empirical contributions that will enable the academic debate to move forward.

The theoretical and practical insights offered by this study, together with those provided by the papers of this Meditari Accountancy Research special issue, will foster future research on integrated thinking. In particular, the framework developed in this paper may be drawn upon by researchers to plan new research projects on integrated thinking and its adoption within organizations.

Some studies investigate the determinants of sustainability/integrated reporting in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). However, empirical research is still very embryonic in the scope of sustainable development goals (SDGs). As far as the authors are aware, previous research related to reporting in HEIs has not considered the linkage with the SDGs. Thus, this paper aims to analyse the disclosure on the websites of the Portuguese HEIs regarding the SDGs and their determinant factors.

This study is based on content analysis of the information disclosed on the websites of all Portuguese HEIs. Through bivariate and multivariate statistics analysis, the authors also aim to identify the explanatory factors for the SDGs reporting (such as geographical location – coast/inland, HEIs’ size, educational system – Universities and polytechnics, institutional status – public and private).

The results indicate that 63.6% of Portuguese HEIs disclose information on SDGs in their websites. Findings of bivariate analysis revealed that public and larger HEIs are those that disclose more information about SDG on their websites. However, the logit regression result found that size is the only determinant factor of SDGs reporting.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first Portuguese approach to SDGs reporting in the Portuguese higher education sector. The results will be of interest to policymakers and regulators who decide to implement and standardize SDGs reporting at higher education, as well as of HEIs’ managers who wish to follow these new trends in their reporting cycle.

The paper explores the process of construction of the “accountable self”, particularly as this process engages with the spirituality of the self. This study examines the “space of accountability” within which the accountable self constructs itself as such and investigates how different accounts of the self are drawn upon in the making of this space, both defining and transcending it.

The paper relies upon archival material concerning accounting and accountability practices about the project for building the altar of St. Ignatius in the Church of Gesù, Rome, Italy (1691–1706). This study examines calculative and narrative accounts about the project from the perspective of the superintendent, who was the sole person accountable for the building works.

Whereas calculative accounts enabled the self to account for actions within the specific space of accountability of the project, narrative accounts opened up this space, providing for a testimony of actions and a gift of accountability towards future indefinite others. This process was prompted by the spirituality of the self and the narcissistic gratification of fulfilling this spirituality.

The paper adds to the literature on the accountable self and to theological perspectives into accountability. This study suggests exploring how different accounts of the self engage with each other through testimony, gift, narcissism and spirituality in the construction of the accountable self, providing for a “transcendent” space of accountability. This research also adds to studies on narrative accounts by showing that they are drawn upon alongside calculative accounts in the construction of the transcendent, accountable self.

This study aims to investigate whether public attention influences corporate decisions on environmental disclosure, thereby revealing how society perceives and understands environmental issues and how corporations respond to these expectations.

We selected publicly listed Chinese firms as our sample. An “Environmental Disclosure Greenwashing” (EDG) Index was developed through textual analysis of their annual reports using natural language processing. Financial data were obtained from the CSMAR database, and multivariate regression was used for analysis.

The impact of public attention on EDG primarily manifests as an oversight pressure effect rather than a legitimacy incentive effect. As public attention intensifies, firms tend to adopt more substantial environmental actions instead of merely symbolic environmental disclosures. Formal regulatory frameworks might inadvertently trigger corporate EDG, but public attention can correct the adverse effects possibly introduced by formal regulations. Notably, in firms facing lower institutional pressure, the influence of public attention is more pronounced.

The evidence suggests that public attention reduces corporate EDG. These findings have significant implications for the regulation of environmental disclosures among firms in emerging economies.

The study integrates research in environmental disclosure with the concept of “greenwashing”, unveiling the limitations of the “disclosure as governance” viewpoint. It elucidates the impact of an informal external oversight mechanism (i.e. public attention) on complex corporate environmental disclosure decisions.

The most significant predictor for health care utilization is the individual's health status. Other factors shown to affect Medicare recipient's use of health care services are income, education, insurance, age, smoking status, place of residence, and having an ongoing relationship with a physician. Less is known about the demographic and socioeconomic factors that affect prescription drug use. Analogously to medical utilization, health status had been determined to be a significant predictor for prescription drug use. Prescription drug insurance has also been shown to increase pharmacy utilization, but its impact on overall health care costs has yet to be determined.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the existence, uniqueness and stability of solutions to a class of Riemann–Liouville fractional differential equations with anti-periodic boundary conditions of variable order (R-LFDEAPBCVO). The study utilizes standard fixed point theorems (FiPoTh) to establish the existence and uniqueness of solutions. Additionally, the Ulam-Hyers-Rassias (Ul-HyRa) stability of the considered problem is examined. The obtained results are supported by an illustrative example. This research contributes to the understanding of fractional differential equations with variable order and anti-periodic boundary conditions, providing valuable insights for further studies in this field.

This paper (1) defines the Riemann–Liouville fractional differential equations with anti-periodic boundary conditions of variable order (R-LFDEAPBCVO); (2) discusses the existence and uniqueness of solutions to these equations using standard FiPoTh; (3) investigates the stability of the considered problem using the Ul-HyRa stability concept (Ul-HyRa); (4) provides a detailed explanation of the design and methodology used to obtain the results and (5) supports the obtained results with a relevant example.

The authors confirm that no funds, grants or any other form of financial support were received during the preparation of this manuscript.

The originality/value of our paper lies in its contribution to the field of fractional differential equations. Specifically, we address the existence, uniqueness and stability of solutions to a class of Riemann–Liouville fractional differential equations with anti-periodic boundary conditions of variable order. By utilizing standard FiPoTh and investigating Ul-HyRa stability, we provide novel insights into this problem. The results obtained are supported by an example, further enhancing the credibility and applicability of your findings. Overall, our paper adds to the existing knowledge and understanding of Riemann–Liouville fractional differential equations with anti-periodic boundary conditions, making it valuable to the scientific community.