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Drawing on the natural resource-based view and the literature on management control systems as a package, this study aims to investigate organizations’ sustainability control systems designed to achieve the interrelated sustainability objectives of performance and reporting.

The authors use three-stage least squares regressions on archival data for a large sample of international companies.

Better environmental performance and sustainability reporting quality are related to certain control system components, and the dual objectives of sustainability performance and reporting are interrelated.

This study provides theoretical contributions and practical implications by demonstrating how a set of sustainability control components can enable better sustainability reporting and performance outcomes.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of internal variables, such as strategic governance and operational controls, along with external variables that influence sustainability reporting.

Building on the corporate governance and sustainability reporting literature, the authors develop a model to integrate external motivators and internal facilitators to determine their impact on sustainability reporting. The authors also control for a number of financial and non-financial variables that may influence sustainability reporting. The authors limit their sample to the companies in extractive industries that report their greenhouse gas emission to the Government of Canada. The authors collected the data from several data sources including secondary archival databases, newspapers, Web sites and annual reports.

Using a sample of companies in high-polluting industries, the authors found that variables representing both external pressures that act as motivators and internal controls that act as facilitators are significantly associated with enhanced sustainability reporting.

Considering the formation of several international initiatives such as International Integrated Reporting Council to improve sustainability reporting for decision-making, the authors’ research provides interesting insights both to policymakers and managers about organizational characteristics that are important to make reporting useful and relevant.

Little academic research has investigated the role of internal variables in facilitating sustainability reporting. The authors use a robust model that combines external and internal variables to more thoroughly understand the reporting process.

This study aims to empirically investigate the role of organizational culture and climate in supporting intellectual capital (IC) management systems. Specifically, it seeks to investigate the relationship between organizational characteristics (culture and climate) and IC management systems in the Middle East (Iran and Lebanon) and Canada.

Data were gathered via a survey instrument and statistical analysis was used to test for significance between dependent and independent variables. Then a two‐stage hierarchical multiple regression was used to test for the nature and effects of country of origin as a moderating variable.

The findings suggest that both culture and climate play significant roles in developing management systems for IC. In addition, for country, when organizational climate improves, Middle Eastern respondents perceived an even greater improvement in IC management systems compared to their Canadian counterparts.

There is limited research that has been undertaken to compare developed and developing countries with regard to the influence of organizational characteristics on IC management systems. This research is timely given the recent publication of the Arab Human Development Report and the Arab Knowledge Report. This study provides insight into the ability of organizations in the Middle East to develop a knowledge base and reduce the knowledge gap between the Arab world and countries currently classified as knowledge intensive.

Illustrates the importance of a strong, implementable environmental plan and control system for the start‐up phase of a back‐country mountain biking company in the Crowsnest Pass area of Alberta, Canada. Careful planning showed that a commitment to the environment allowed the founder access to the necessary trails on public land. The key was to consider where company goals overlapped with stakeholder goals and incorporate a plan to achieve these goals. By developing a simple but effective monitoring and control system, the company was allowed to self‐regulate. The Land and Forest Service felt that the only regulation needed for Treadsoftly was adherence to its own environmental policy and monitoring its progress through its own control system. The company’s environmental management system was instrumental in receiving speedy approval for other permits and licences needed to operate in the area.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate what motivated Shell Canada, a subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell, to be one of the first companies in the world to report its environmental initiatives in 1991. It aims to explore how Shell Canada, driven by a set of core values and business principles, continues to make strides in the quality of its sustainability reporting and communication.

Shell historical reports and documents were reviewed and interview data gathered from company personnel.

The paper reveals that Shell Canada has gained a reputation for striving toward stakeholder engagement and transparency in its reporting as well as through its actions.

The paper offers advice to other companies as to how to improve their corporate communications regarding their environmental and sustainability performance.

The paper demonstrates Shell Canada's efforts to initiate transparent sustainable development reporting and stakeholder engagement, two areas in which other companies can learn from Shell Canada.

This study sets out to examine how organizational characteristics are related to intellectual capital and how these variables are different between Canadian and Middle East contexts.

A questionnaire was developed to measure the four major study constructs, i.e. intellectual capital, culture, climate, and organizational traits. Each of these constructs was represented by a number of subscales that were subjected to ANOVA and correlations to test the hypotheses.

The analysis showed that all three categories of characteristics (culture, climate, and other traits) are significantly correlated with IC management. The results also indicated significant differences in all organizational characteristics and IC management between Canada and the Middle East.

Culture, climate, and other traits are important enablers for the effective management of IC. Although the research tested three culture variables, four climate variables, and two other traits, future research should investigate these variables and the interactions among them more thoroughly.

The results have implications for organizations operating in different international contexts. Managers can use the results for more effective and efficient management of organizational characteristics that would foster IC management.

The research provides a comprehensive study of enablers of effective IC management, an area of study that has not received much attention in the past. It also provides insight as to why effective IC management may be more successful in certain countries.

The Intellectual Capital Realization Process (ICRP), developed by the authors, permits the leaders of an organization to develop strategies to realize the potential of intellectual capital (IC). This process is consistent with the resource‐based view of the firm, which suggests looking inward to develop core competencies for building competitive advantages. By utilizing a public sector organization as an example, this paper seeks to inform the reader of the preliminary work and subsequent steps to follow when implementing the ICRP. The Canadian Sport Centre Calgary (CSCC) organization serves this purpose, although the ICRP has also proven equally successful when used in a private sector company. The ICRP helped the CSCC identify and plan the development of its unique capabilities, relationships, and processes that benefit the organization through the creation of leadership ability and the generation of wealth.

The management of intellectual capital (IC) within organizations depends on appropriate organizational structures and characteristics. This paper seeks to argue that certain structural, cultural, and climate characteristics will lead to more effective IC management.

The paper reviews the theoretical and empirical IC literature, as well as the literatures regarding organic environments, trust, participative decision making, and creative renewal processes, to develop a model relating to the antecedent conditions necessary for the management of IC.

The model developed will assist researchers in the identification and exploration of variables linked to the effective management of IC within organizations.

It is concluded that managers of organizations need to create organic structures, build trust with employees, encourage creative renewal, and develop participative decision‐making processes.

By integrating several fields of the literature that relate to IC management, the paper suggests propositions that deserve future research consideration.

The purpose of this paper is to develop propositions for empirical validation regarding appropriate management planning and control systems (MPACS) in knowledge‐intensive organizations.

The propositions were developed from interviews with members of a knowledge‐intensive virtual organization that is known for its innovative practices regarding intellectual capital (IC) development and surveys from low to middle range managers, using a semi‐structured questionnaire, from a variety of companies. Trends in responses permitted us to identify issues of importance in developing innovative MPACS for knowledge‐intensive companies.

The paper proposes that two variables, the level of IC intensity and the uncertainty of knowledge, are important for determining the degree of adaptive versus generative characteristics that an organization's MPACS should contain. Regarding IC, the paper further proposes that organizations must give careful thought to ensure that both adaptive and generative characteristics are aligned with four MPACS elements of focus, commitment, capability, and learning.

As organizations develop programs to realize the potential from their intellectual capital, many fail to develop MPACS that are appropriate for knowledge‐intensive environments. MPACS should support knowledge creation, as well as knowledge sharing, and contain elements of both adaptive and generative systems.

Masters of Business Administration (MBA) programmes have undergone drastic change in the past years in order to adapt to the changing business environment. Part of the change in curriculum requires placing more emphasis on the control environment. It is essential that future managers understand their responsibility for good control systems within their organizations. Discusses techniques that can be used to teach MBA students the subject matter of internal auditing and control that is normally found only in auditing courses for accounting majors.