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The purpose of this multi-voiced paper is to propose a prosocial paradigm for the field of performance management and management control systems. This new paradigm suggests cultivating prosocial behaviour and prosocial groups in organizations to simultaneously achieve the objectives of economic performance and sustainability.

The authors share a common concern about the future of humanity and nature. They challenge the influential assumption of economic man from neoclassical economic theory and build on evolutionary science and the core design principles of prosocial groups to develop a prosocial paradigm.

Findings are based on the premise of the prosocial paradigm that self-interested behaviour may outperform prosocial behaviour within a group but that prosocial groups outperform groups dominated by self-interest. The authors explore various dimensions of performance management from the prosocial perspective in the private and public sectors.

The authors call for theoretical, conceptual and empirical research that explores the prosocial paradigm. They invite any approach, including positivist, interpretive and critical research, as well as those using qualitative, quantitative and interventionist methods.

This paper offers implications from the prosocial paradigm for practitioners, particularly for executives and managers, policymakers and educators.

Adoption of the prosocial paradigm in research and practice shapes what the authors call the prosocial market economy. This is an aspired cultural evolution that functions with market competition yet systematically strengthens prosociality as a cultural norm in organizations, markets and society at large.

The authors examine how performance measurement systems (PMSs) and academic agency influence the meaning of research quality in practice. The worries are that the notion of research quality is becoming too simplistically and narrowly determined by research quality's measurable proxies and that academics, especially manager-academics, do not sufficiently realise this risk. Whilst prior literature has covered the effects of performance measurement in the university sector broadly and how PMSs are mobilised locally, there is only little understanding of whether and how PMSs affect the meaning of research quality in practice.

The study is designed as a comparative case study of two university faculties in Finland. The role of conceptual analysis plays a notable role in the study, too.

The authors find that manager-academics of the two examined faculties have rather similar conceptual understandings of research quality. However, there were differences in the degree of slippage between the “espoused-meaning” of research quality and “meaning-in-practice” of research quality. The authors traced these differences to how the local PMS and manager-academics’ agency relate to one another within the context of increasing global and national performance pressures. The authors developed a tentative framework for the various “styles of agency”. This suggests how the relationship between the local PMS and manager-academics’ exerted agency shapes the “degrees of freedom” of the meaning of research quality in practice.

Given that research quality lies at the heart of academic work, the authors' paper indicates that exploring the three matters – performance measurement, the agency of manager-academics and the meaning of research quality in practice – in combination is crucial for the sustainability of the academe. The authors contribute to the literature by detailing the way in which local PMS and manager-academics' agency have material impacts on what research quality means in practice. The authors conclude by highlighting the pressing need for manager-academics to exercise the agency in efforts to safeguard a broad and pluralistic understanding of research quality in practice.

The objective of this longitudinal case study is to study management control problems in corporate mergers and acquisitions. This is executed by analysing the post acquisition merger processes of two companies of equal size, but with different cultures and management accounting systems (MAS). It is argued that the MAS evolution in such a context may differ significantly from other types of merger and acquisition. The study examines how the new MAS developed after the acquisition. It is argued that goal ambiguity, cultural conflicts, unintended consequences, and dominant individuals play a crucial role in such a process. The study expands and deepens previous findings on MAS integration after corporate mergers, and management accounting change and continuity in general. After comparing the findings of the case study with earlier research, the analysis is expanded and deepened through structuration theory and goal ambiguity.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of leadership in management accounting change processes and outcomes.

The paper draws on an ethnographic study in a Southern European company and mobilizes leader–follower relations as a method theory to analyse the observations.

The findings show how a leadership dispute between two top managers can be amplified during the management accounting change process and percolate throughout an organization. The authors identify five contested areas where the role of accounting amplifies the leadership dispute by unfolding its reach to other organizational actors. The leadership dispute can shape and reinforce a fragmented organization, with some organizational members creating convergent leader–follower relations while others divert and fragment with an increased turnover. This amplification can lead to unexpected outcomes of the change process in terms of how and by whom accounting is performed.

The authors propose the study of leadership and followership as an important but, to date, largely neglected theme in management accounting research.

In contrast to the prior management accounting literature, the paper departs from a leadership-centric and role-based approach and employs a co-constructionist and relational approach to leadership and followership to analyse management accounting change. In addition, it applies and extends Alvesson's (2019a) theory on “divergent relationalities” between the presumed leaders and followers. In doing so, the paper also adds to the leadership field by theorizing and integrating the situation of a leadership dispute in this novel theoretical framework.

The purpose of this paper is to distinguish two roles of theories, domain theory and method theory, and examine their relationships in management accounting research. Are these two roles explicitly distinguished in management accounting studies? Can this be achieved in an unambiguous manner? Where do ambitions for theoretical contribution lie in management accounting studies that employ method theories?

The authors develop a conceptual framework for analysing possible relationships between domain theories and method theories in studies and illustrate the theoretical arguments with examples from management accounting studies employing Actor-Network Theory (ANT) as their method theory.

There can be various types of relationships between domain theories and method theories, and the theoretical ambition of the analysed studies typically focused on domain theories. However, ambiguity can exist with regard to the location of a study's theoretical ambition. Both domain theories and method theories tend to be moving fields, and their interaction can add to this feature.

The suggested conceptual clarification assists in the reconciliation of extreme perspectives that relate to management accounting and theory. It will also help researchers to systematically design their own work and evaluate that of others. An increased understanding of how a field develops as a result of interaction with method theories might perhaps alleviate concerns regarding the value of mobilizing the latter.

The analysis contributes to the on-going debate on the value and effects of employing method theories, or theoretical lenses, in management accounting research.

Several scholars have recently highlighted the narrowness of accounting research regarding it as a threat to scholarly developments in the field. The aim of this study was to chart progress in management accounting research using a sample of doctoral dissertations published in Finland. In particular, the study examines the range and diversity of research strategic choices in Finnish dissertations over time, including the topics and methodological and theoretical approaches chosen. The authors also briefly compare findings over time and with other progress studies.

A longitudinal historical investigation was selected. All of the 80 management accounting doctoral dissertations published in Finnish business schools and departments during 1945-2015 were analysed.

The findings reveal that an expansion of doctoral education has led to an increasing diversity of research strategic choices in Finland. Different issues have been of interest at different times; so, it has been possible to cover a wide range of cost, management accounting and other topics and to use different methodological and theoretical approaches over time. Consequently, management accounting has become a rich and multifaceted field of scientific research.

While this analysis is limited to doctoral research in Finland, the results should be relevant in advancing the understanding of the development of management accounting research.

Overall, the findings support the view that there have been, and continue to be, many ways to conduct innovative research in the field of management accounting.

Dissertation research in this field has been extensive and vital enough to educate new generations of academics, guarantee continuity of the subject as an academic discipline and make management accounting a significant academic field of research.

The paper contributes to current research on management accounting change by an analysis of a sample of doctoral dissertations.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how different actors influenced the implementation of an environmental management system (EMS) and a performance measurement system (PMS) in a case company when the systems are eventually integrated. Another purpose is to illustrate how the frameworks of Gibson and Earley and Lovaglia et al. can be utilized to investigate the implementation of different management systems in practice.

This paper is an interpretative case study, which utilizes qualitative methods such as semi‐structured interviews and internal documents.

The results indicate the importance of maintaining a separation between the power and status of an actor in EMS and PMS implementation processes, and the ways in which the power and status of actors in the EMS and PMS implementation differed. The status and role of an actor can change although the power may be static during the implementation of different management systems. Therefore, the paper confirms the classification of Lovaglia et al. and proposes that their classification should be added to the framework of Gibson and Earley.

Earlier accounting studies using the institutional theory framework of Burns and Scapens did not specifically investigate the role of actors, or their power and status in implementing two different management systems. The collective action frameworks of Gibson and Earley and Lovaglia et al. have not been practically utilized before in EMS and PMS studies. Furthermore, EMS and PMS integration studies have usually been normative without empirical case data.

Accountants’ involvement in environmental and sustainability management has merely been investigated to date. With the continuous take-up of sustainability issues by companies and with the growing experience companies gain in dealing with this topic, this chapter raises the question whether accountants are involved in a way different than previously reported and if yes, what their role is in social accounting practice.

Based on 58 interviews with corporate practitioners, this chapter firstly explores the roles involved in the social accounting practice in companies which are considered to be leading in sustainability reporting in the United Kingdom and Germany. Secondly, the role of professional accountants is analysed from a power theory perspective.

The main findings suggest that professional accountants are partially involved in social accounting practice but mainly exert a gatekeeping role between sustainability managers and higher management.

Investigating the observed behaviour empirically can help improve social accounting. Should it turn out that the accountants have no other option but to act like gatekeepers, accounting education will play a major role in overcoming this deficiency in the pursuit of improved sustainability knowledge and performance. If, on the other hand, it is the defensive stance of accounting professionals and the fear of losing power in corporate structures which motivates them to act as gatekeepers, mechanisms to motivate them to cooperate should be researched.

The chapter empirically investigates and discusses the accountant’s contribution to sustainability information management. This can help overcome organisational challenges impeding companies to successfully implement sustainability measures.

The study aims to explore the processes of implementing an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system in a public service organization operating in an emerging market economy, namely, the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

The study draws on Laughlin’s (1991) model of organizational change to highlight how the introduction of an ERP system, particularly its accounting modules, disrupted the adopting organization’s modes of thinking and its members’ practices. It uses a case study methodology. Data collection methods included semistructured interviews, documentary evidence and personal observation.

The case study findings show that despite implementation and customization problems, the organization’s employees were forced to use the ERP system. The findings also highlight how the ERP system was acted upon to mobilize the organization’s members toward a new era of information technology. However, the misfit between pre- and post-ERP system accounting practices led to some organizational members to form absorbing groups that questioned accounting-based ERP system organizational changes. The top management’s persistent desire to adopt the ERP system through forcing the organization’s employees to use the system’s modules led the organization to undergo what Laughlin (1991) calls “colonization” organizational change.

The use of a case study methodology inherently limits the generalizability of the study’s findings. The case study was carried out over a relatively short timeframe, namely, ten months. Therefore, the use of a longitudinal case study to examine accounting-based ERP organizational change is recommended.

The study provides insights that can assist top management in formulating organizational change strategies. It also provides insights about emerging economies’ regulatory particularities that influence ERP system implementation.

The study is one of the first studies that utilizes Laughlin’s (1991) model of organizational change to examine accounting-based ERP organizational change in an emerging market economy.