PurposeExtending prior research on control and innovation, this study aims to explore the role of control in fostering sustainable innovations (as innovations that support social, environmental and economic performance) within industrial, inter-organisational contexts, examining how different controls are enacted.Design/methodology/approachA multiple case study design is used to examine how controls are enacted in two multinational, private-listed industrial B2B organisations, headquartered in Scandinavia. Drawing on both primary and secondary data, Simons (1995) levers of control (LOC) framework is used to analyse control enactment in the industrial context. Following the firms over 10 years, the study elaborates on the key types of controls and their interactions in supporting different forms of sustainable innovation.FindingsThe study extends the LOC framework to industrial, inter-organisational contexts. It shows how beliefs, boundary and diagnostic controls align behaviours for sustainable innovations, leading to incremental rather than radical sustainable innovations. It also shows that diagnostic controls play a dual role in supporting compliance (exploitation) and facilitating learning (exploration). Meanwhile, interactive controls remain limited in fostering change. The study also highlights the emerging role of social innovation within sustainability control research as important.Originality/valueExtending the LOC framework to industrial, inter-organisational settings, this study offers new insights into how control systems shape sustainable innovation. It challenges traditional views on control by demonstrating that diagnostic controls not only enforce compliance but also foster learning, providing a more nuanced understanding of control dynamics for sustainability.

While social and environmental accounting studies often focus on organisational-level motivations to engage in sustainability, less is known about how controls are designed to motivate individuals (managers and non-managers) to engage in sustainable workplace behaviours that align with organisational goals and, ultimately, wider planetary concerns. Drawing on the concept of motivation and its relation to control, this study aims to deepen the understanding of the role of sustainability controls for behavioural alignment across different contexts. This is achieved through the production of a conceptual typology that elaborates: What, when and how should controls be used to motivate organisational and individual behaviours that align for sustainability performance? Drawing on (1) the classification types of organisational-level ethical motivations and (2) the regulatory styles and processes of the self-determination continuum, examples are provided from two independent case studies to illustrate the types of controls that can be used by organisations to motivate the sustainable behaviours of their employees; behaviours that extend beyond the workplace into the personal sphere. The typology has analytical potential for future sustainability control research as well as practical implications in that managers can assess organisational and employee positions and then design controls accordingly to support behavioural alignment. It is important for understanding the behavioural alignment function of control by elaborating different types of incentives that can motivate sustainable behaviour. Finally, this approach may help reduce tensions in management control by connecting individual, organisational and, ultimately, planetary levels in sustainability efforts.

Corporate Governance in a Nordic Setting focuses on the historical, cultural and political development of the Swedish corporate governance code and model. It explores the definition and interpretations of corporate governance, including the Cadbury Report and OECD definitions, and specifically discusses powerful institutions that shaped its tradition over time. It further outlines the distinguishing features of the Nordic and Swedish corporate governance models, including taxation, ownership structures, corporate culture, and leadership styles. Emphasis is placed on the role of corporate governance in achieving a sustainable society, arguing for the importance of integrating financial, social and environmental perspectives at the corporate governance level. The chapters discuss a broad spectrum of topics including corporate ownership structures, agency conflicts, board diversity, employee representation on corporate boards, sustainability governance, and corporate governance in times of crisis, providing insights into Nordic and Swedish corporate governance and highlighting their unique characteristics and implications for businesses and society.

Companies struggle to integrate sustainability into their corporate strategy and implement it in their business activities. To examine this issue, we develop an extended version of Gond et al.’s (2012) integration typology that considers all four of Simons’s (1994, 1995) levers of control. We then present a longitudinal study of the efforts made by a multi-national industrial firm to align its management control system and sustainability control system in an integrated sustainability strategy. Our results provide three insights into control system integration for sustainability. First, intensive dialogues among managers at different organizational levels and in different organizational functions mitigate challenges to the technical and organizational integration of sustainability along a firm’s value chain. Second, the degree to which the firm’s strategic-level managers focus on external sustainability drivers influences how well the firm develops and markets sustainability-related products and services. Finally, a committed CEO and strategic-level management can avoid marginalizing sustainability by communicating their beliefs about it through intensive dialogues across management levels. Our results support the position that a firm can manage sustainability by making incremental changes in management control practices.

This chapter aims to provide critical reflections on accounting for sustainability developments, the present situation and future developments. First, it is descried how accounting for sustainability has become an important element in companies' reporting landscape. Thereafter, a number of important players in the market for sustainability accounting are presented, and how the shift from voluntary disclosure to statutory sustainability reports has gradually changed. The chapter describes a possible turning point in accounting for sustainability, as increased legal requirements for sustainability information have resulted in growing demands on its quality. Then, current developments of sustainability reporting against aggregated reporting frameworks are discussed. Finally, some reflections are presented on the future developments of accounting for sustainability.

Purpose: In this paper, we investigate the development, the current state, and the potential of business model disclosures to illustrate where, why and how organizations might want to disclose their business models to their stakeholders. The description of the business model may be relevant to stakeholders if it helps them to comprehend the company ‘story’ and increase understanding of other provided data (i.e. financial statements, risk exposure, sustainability of operations). It can also aid stakeholders in the assessment of sustainability of business models and the whole company. To realize these goals, business model descriptions should fulfil requirements of users suggested by various guidelines. Design/Methodology/Approach: First, we review and analyse literature on business model disclosure and some of its antecedents, including voluntary disclosure of intellectual capital. We also discuss business model reporting incentives from the viewpoint of shareholders, stakeholders and legitimacy theory. Second, we compare and discuss reporting guidelines on strategic reports, intellectual capital reports, and integrated reports through the lens of their requirements for business model disclosure and the consequences of their use for corporate report users. Third, we present, analyse and compare examples of good corporate practices in business model reporting. Findings: In the examined reporting guidelines, we find similarities, e.g. mostly structural but also qualitative attributes, in their presented information: materiality, completeness, connectivity, future orientation and conciseness. We also identify important differences between their frameworks concerning the target audience of the reports, business model definitions and business model disclosure requirements. Discontinuation of intellectual capital reporting conforming to DATI guidelines provides important warnings for the proponents of voluntary disclosure – especially for International Integrated Reporting Council guidelines. Still, because relatively few studies have examined the preparation and use of business model disclosures, we suggest areas for further research. Originality/Value: This paper is the first that investigates, analyses, and compares the three most common reporting frameworks that contain business model reporting and disclosures.

From the early decades of the twentieth century, a dominant characteristic of the modern “capitalist” corporation, especially in the United States, was the separation of asset ownership in the form of publicly traded shares from allocative control over the corporation’s resources by salaried managers. By the 1950s some depicted managerial-controlled large enterprise as the “soulful” corporation in which the allocation of resources resulted in enhanced social welfare. In the 1960s, however, some conservative academics looked to market forces, dubbed the ‘market for corporate control’, to ensure that managers as employees would give primacy to shareholders in the allocation of corporate resources. This market for corporate control could enable hostile takeovers in which shareholders who accumulated large public equity stakes in a company could discipline managers to allocate resources in ways that “the market” deemed to be efficient. The notion that market allocation could control managerial organization was then developed theoretically based on the conceptualisation that the corporation (and indeed any firm) could be conceptualised as a ‘nexus of contracts’ or a ‘collection of assets’. Rather than view the corporation as a social organization with its unique history and competitive capabilities in which public shareholders had come to play a peripheral role, neoclassical economists conceptualised the corporation as a set of voluntary contracts among owners of resources and as a portfolio of assets with different market-determined rates of returns.

Managers struggle to translate sustainability strategies into actions. This study examines the use of a management control system (MCS) and sustainability control system (SCS) to support the implementation of an integrated sustainability strategy. It is based on in-depth interviews with key finance and sustainability managers in a Swedish global industrial company. We draw upon the levers of control (LOC) concept to analyze the organization’s use of MCS and SCS. The interactive components of the firm’s SCS are characterized by dialogue between strategic and tactical level managers in a non-invasive environment. Thus, the firm deploys these strategic performance controls in an enabling as opposed to a constraining fashion. Strategic validity controls, however, are only well-developed for a subset of the firm’s products and services. These findings suggest that the manner in which an organization deploys interactive controls within its SCS is influenced strongly by the organization’s culture and the industry in which it operates. The organization’s MCS and SCS exhibit technical integration, but faces challenges with respect to organizational and cognitive integration. Yet, technical integration appears to compensate in part for the lack of integration along the other two dimensions. This study contributes to an emerging body of research that adapts management control frameworks to examine the relationship between strategy and sustainability.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to account for, and conceptualize, the internal and external forces that influence higher education business schools as they strive to integrate sustainability issues into their curricula in the effort to achieve a more sustainable (yet capitalist) world. Design/methodology/approach – A case study approach is used for the research, which is grounded in the relevant literature, to investigate sustainable development issues in the context of a Swedish business school (university level). The empirical data consists of a review of internal documents plus e-mail surveys and interviews and discussion seminars with university teachers/researchers and key administrators. Findings – Two tentative models are presented that map the various internal and external forces behind business schools’ curriculum change. One important finding describes how supply and demand influences business schools and recruiters of business students. Research limitations/implications – Because this research is based on a single case study, the analysis and the mapping in the paper are somewhat limited in their general applicability. However, the research context of the business school permits drawing conclusions that may apply to a broad class of colleges or departments in higher education. In addition, because the research is supported by significant ideas from the literature, general inferences may be drawn about business school curricula. Originality/value – The two tentative models provide a holistic framework that adds to the understanding of the composition and interrelationship of influential forces on business schools when major changes in curricula and their management are contemplated.

This article examines concepts of trust and concepts of control particularly found within management accounting research, for itself and together. The most prominent/influential concepts, and the underlying assumptions behind them, are problematized and re-conceptualized in order to generate new research questions.

This paper presents the area of management control and trust in an inter-organizational setting with an attempt to offer a fresh perspective on the complex relationship between and different understandings of the two concepts of trust and control. This is done with help of two case studies in a cross-cultural setting and involving five multinational companies that were involved in two large acquisitions. Obviously, different actor groups’ cultural and educational heritage has brought with it that dissimilar opinions exist on the subject of mainly system-based versus inter-personal based trust.The paper first demonstrates that trust and control can mean different but also the same things to different people, depending very much on the logic and values applied but also depending on if the actors were motivated more intrinsically or extrinsically. Further, what impact certain control mechanisms, or the lack thereof, have on individual’s behavior is outlined. The paper also reveals that it is difficult to find the right balance between diverse types of control and trust as time went on after the acquisitions. The main reason for this is that actors with different socio-cultural heritage use different references regarding trust and control and put unlike emphasis on what should be focused on, what should be counted, and what should be accounted for. Trust and control can mean almost identical things but the cases illustrate that, from a rhetorical and convincing point of view, system trust appears to be stronger in certain settings than inter-personal trust, as it, to particular actors, provides the impression of being in control. The contrary is true in other settings, where having ‘facts and figures’ and ‘a whole bunch ‘of accounting systems and accounting techniques not automatically mean to be in control, thus leaving more room for the use and appreciation of inter-personal trust.

Mergers and acquisitions have been a common strategy in the automobile industry since its earliest days. Growing technological complexity and ever shortening product lifecycles have, for a long time, forced automobile producers to various kinds of alliances and production networks with the goal to bridge interand intra-firm boundaries. During the 1990s and forward, limited organic growth potential and industry overcapacity of more than 25 per cent worldwide (KPMG, 2010) led many car companies believe that mergers & acquisitions were the only option to realize their growth targets. According to MacNeill & Chanaron (2005) and Orsato & Wells (2007), increased competition among automobile producers, which put pressure on prices and