Routledge Studies in Accounting – serie

In the dynamic field of accounting, where accuracy and productivity are critical, artificial intelligence (AI) integration has become a game-changer and AI is set to affect every industry. With the speed at which technology is developing, a thorough manual that helps readers understand the complex world of AI in accounting is desperately needed. By offering a sophisticated grasp of how AI is changing the core ideas of accounting and financial management, this book bridges this knowledge gap. It explores the relationship between AI technology and accounting processes, revealing the significant influence and unrealised potential outside of traditional bookkeeping.This book delves into how AI is revolutionising accounting procedures. It explores the newest AI technologies and their uses in financial data processing, auditing, compliance, and forecasting, ranging from machine learning to predictive analytics. It ensures responsible AI integration by addressing biases, accountability, and transparency while emphasising ethical considerations. This book provides case studies, practical advice, and examples from the real world, guaranteeing that readers not only understand the theoretical foundations of AI in accounting but also get the knowledge necessary to apply and maximise these technologies within their professional domains by connecting theory and application. It offers a road map for traversing the accounting industry's AI frontier, from using predictive analytics to make well-informed decisions to automating repetitive activities.This book will enable accountants, auditors, and financial analysts to prosper in the emerging AI-driven world.

Auditing is generally considered to be a particularly practical discipline. This hampers theoretical research, as does its complex nature. The unquestioning acceptance and implementation of rules governing auditing practice could lead to poor outcomes. This book provides a theory of auditing that underpins auditing practice.Identifying the objectives of auditing in the context of financial reporting, this book examines underlying beliefs to provide a deeper understanding of the concepts of auditing. In analyzing the field from a theoretical perspective, the author encounters important concepts such as materiality, verification, evidence, risk and professional judgement. Philosophical ideas about the social construction of reality are employed to explain the role of theory in a building block of the business world.This book is vital reading for auditing scholars globally, whilst its conclusions offer an interesting case study in the philosophy of professional judgement

Bank Regulation: Effects on Strategy, Financial Accounting and Management Control discusses and problematizes how regulation is affecting bank strategies as well as their financial accounting and management control systems. Following a period of bank de-regulation, the new millennium brought a drastic change, with many new regulations. Some of these are the result of the financial crisis of 2008-2009. Other regulations, such as the introduction in 2005 of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) for quoted companies in the EU, can be related to the introduction of a new global accounting regime. It is evident from annual reports of banks that the number of new regulations in recent years is high and that they cover many different functional areas. The objectives of these regulations are also ambitious; to improve governance and control, contributing to a high level of financial stability for banks. These objectives are obviously of great concern for an industry that directly and indirectly affects the financial situation not only of individuals and organizations but also nation states. Considering the importance of banks in society, it is of little surprise that the attention of both scholars and practitioners has been directed towards how banks comply with new regulations and if the intended objectives of the regulations are met. This book will be of great value to all those interested in financial stability matters (practitioners, policy-makers, students, academics), as well as to accounting and finance scholars.

In recent years, nonprofit and voluntary organisations have faced challenges and unanticipated pressures as a result of increased competition for funding, technological advancements, the need to comply with government regulations, and increased social and community expectations regarding greater accountability and transparency.Cost accounting and cost management tools are considered to be a means of providing adequate and quality information for management control for all sorts of organisations, including nonprofits. Using empirical evidence from the Australian nonprofit sector, this research monograph offers insight into how nonprofit and voluntary organisations control and manage the costs of their operations and projects through cost accounting and cost management tools. The book will be of benefit to a range of stakeholders in the sector, including financial and management accountants, professional accounting bodies, the government, policymakers, academics, consultants and operational managers.

The book introduces pragmatic constructivism as a paradigm for understanding actors’ construction of functioning practice and for developing methods and concepts for managing and observing that practice. The book explores, understands and theorises organisational practices as constructed through the activities of all organisational actors. Actors always act under presumptions of a specific actor-world-relation which they continuously construct, adjust and reconstruct in light of new experiences, contexts and communication. The outcome of the actor-world-relation is a reality construction. The reality construction may function successfully or it may be hampered by fictitious and illusionary elements, due to missing or faulty actor-world relations. The thesis is that four dimensions of reality – facts, possibilities, values and communication – must be integrated in the actor-world-relation if the construct is to form a successful basis for effective, functioning actions. Drawing on pragmatic constructivism, the book provides concepts and ideas for studies regarding actors and their use of management accounting models in their construction of organized reality. It concentrates on researching and conceptualizing what creates functioning reality construction. It develops concept and methods for understanding, analysing and managing the actors’ reality constructions. It is intended for people who do research on or work actively with developing management accounting.

Managerial cost accounting is the financial and managerial tool that is used to estimate the organizational cost of products and services in business and government. In recent decades, cost accounting in the United States and other advanced industrial countries has been dominated by discussions of Activity Based Costing or ABC. While ABC can be shown to produce a more accurate estimate of cost than older and more basic types of cost accounting, ABC is not used extensively in many governments. We argue that this recent focus on ABC has stifled examination and discussion of how government cost accounting is being used and how it could be used in practice. The study of cost accounting practice reveals an important and underexplored area of financial management in government.Given the scandals that cost accounting estimates can create and that different types of cost accounting can create different estimates of cost it may be reasonable to ask whether the cost accounting exercise is worth it? Cost Accounting in Government: Theory and Applications addresses these unusual and unusually important topics through a series of studies of different government cost accounting practices. The first section of the book presents two chapters on the history and basic elements of cost accounting. The second section of the book provides further discussion and case studies of actual cost accounting practices in the main areas that cost accounting has been used in government: benchmarking the performance of government services, rate setting, grant overhead cost recovery, and cost management. The last two chapters discuss cost accounting practices in Europe and the future of cost accounting. These cases span local and federal governments and provide a much needed context to the study of cost accounting in government.Aimed at academics, researchers and policy makers in the fields of Accounting, Public Administration, and Government Studies, Cost Accounting in Government: Theory and Applications seeks to address the practical and theoretical gap in government cost accounting research with case studies of different public agencies that are using cost accounting for different purposes. The case studies illustrate that different purposes for cost accounting create unique and interesting cost accounting practices. The case studies provide useful examples of actual cost accounting systems that can inform both research and instruction

Accountancy as presently practised is tied to the paradigm of modern financial capitalism with its reliance on market solutions and the maximization of the firm’s profits, which are the fundamental causes of most these problems.The Social Function of Accounts argues that accountancy, as currently organized and practised, is failing society, both in Britain and in the world as a whole. Examining the current problems afflicting the world: financial crises and instability, global warming, degradation of the environment, growing inequality, this book asks the question - what contribution does accountancy make to the solution of these problems? The book argues that the accountancy profession does not serve the public interest, notwithstanding its claim to this effect. The Social Function of Accounts argues that the moral responsibility of the accountant is analysed with reference to the principal theories of ethics continuing that the individual accountant has a moral responsibility to consider the impact of his actions on other people and on society as a whole. This responsibility is then analysed in a series of chapters dealing with four specific aspects of the matter: Distributive Justice, Sustainability, Financial reporting & the Accountancy Profession.Concluding with a call for the accountancy profession to adopt a new ethic of service to the public The Social Function of Accounts redraws the boundaries of current accounting literature and will be vital reading for academics, researchers and policy makers in accounting and related disciplines.

Accounting Ethics Education: Teaching Virtues and Values gathers a diversity of contributions from invited, well-known experts. It promotes a comprehensive reflection around how ethics can and should be taught to accounting students, discussing and highlighting the most updated research on accounting ethics education, and it is an essential reference in the field.The subject of accounting ethics education is critical to foster ethical awareness that may prevent the way in which one acts or behaves, especially towards others. The point is that accounting education cannot exist without ethical education and accountants must be technically proficient and ethically sensible since ethical behavior is vital to the status and credibility of the accountancy profession. And this sensibility must be developed while the future professional is still cultivating his or her moral and intellectual structure within the school learning environment: character and practical reasoning are crucial because they include not only knowledge of rules and principles, and their correct application but also values and virtues.Examining multiple perspectives, Accounting Ethics Education: Teaching Virtues and Values advances the scholarly debate by providing cuttingedge and insightful research vital for all those interested and immersed in these matters. It begins with a historical perspective of accounting ethics education and continues by exploring challenges, opportunities and developments in the area. It will be of great value to academics, students, researchers and professionals in the fields of accounting, accounting education and ethics.

Spending on M&A has, in aggregate, grown so fast that it has even overtaken capital expenditure on increasing and maintaining physical assets. Yet McKinsey, the leading management consultancy, reports that "Anyone who has researched merger success rates knows that roughly 70% fail". The idea that businesses might be using huge and increasing sums of shareholders’ money for an activity that more often than not leads to failure calls into question the information on which M&A decisions are based.This book presents statistical studies, case material, and standard-setters’ opinions on company accounting before, during, and after M&A. It documents the manipulation of annual accounts by acquirers ahead of share for share bids, biased forecasts of post-merger earnings by bidders, and devices to flatter earnings when recording the deal. It explores the challenges for standard-setters in regulating information flows during and after M&A, and for account-users wishing to learn from financial statements how a deal has affected performance.Drawing on a wide range of international examples, this readable book is targeted not just at accounting specialists but at anyone who is comfortable reading the serious financial press, is intrigued by what is going on in the massive M&A market, and is concerned with achieving better-informed M&A. As such it might be of particular interest to business executives, lawyers, bankers, and investors involved in M&A as well as graduate students interested in researching or learning about the role of accounting in M&A.

This book provides a comprehensive and critical overview of learning accounting. It illustrates that when learners need to mentally integrate two or more distinct items of information, it places unnecessary demands on cognitive load. The book discusses the cognitive load theory, which assumes that the task of mental integration increases the load on already limited working memory, and it does so to such an extent that learning may be severely impeded. The book also investigates how students could deal with cognitive overload when learning introductory accounting using three instructional design formats: the split-attention format, the integrated format, and the self-managed format.

The privatisation of the British railway industry was a unique political and economic event. An integrated industry was broken-up into numerous component parts and sold off to private sector interests. The result was a highly fragmented industry that was structurally unsound and operationally dysfunctional. This authoritative volume presents an enlightening portrait of an industry that is less efficient, more costly and still more dependent on state subsidy today than its nationalised predecessor.The nine chapters in this work present a comprehensive and rigorous evaluation of how and why the industry has become so dysfunctional and costly, supported by detailed financial analysis and industry examples.Seven chapters comprise a series of peer-reviewed academic papers by Professor McCartney and Dr Stittle and published in leading international journals over the period 2004–2017 which analyse selected key segments of the privatised industry: where appropriate, updates are provided at the end of these chapters outlining developments since initial publication relevant to the analysis therein. Two chapters are published here for the first time: Chapter 7 reviews the performance of the freight sector, while Chapter 1 ‘bookends’ the volume by providing first, an account of how rail privatisation was conceived and implemented in the 1980s/90s, and then reviews the impact of the pandemic and the proposals of the Williams-Shapps White Paper of 2021 which, if enacted, will effectively end the Major government’s experiment.Going far beyond the usual superficial analysis of the topic, this volume will be of significant interest to researchers and advanced students of accounting, economics, business history, transport studies, as well as industry and specialised business interests in transport and privatisation.

Spending on M&A has, in aggregate, grown so fast that it has even overtaken capital expenditure on increasing and maintaining physical assets. Yet McKinsey, the leading management consultancy, reports that "Anyone who has researched merger success rates knows that roughly 70% fail". The idea that businesses might be using huge and increasing sums of shareholders’ money for an activity that more often than not leads to failure calls into question the information on which M&A decisions are based.This book presents statistical studies, case material, and standard-setters’ opinions on company accounting before, during, and after M&A. It documents the manipulation of annual accounts by acquirers ahead of share for share bids, biased forecasts of post-merger earnings by bidders, and devices to flatter earnings when recording the deal. It explores the challenges for standard-setters in regulating information flows during and after M&A, and for account-users wishing to learn from financial statements how a deal has affected performance.Drawing on a wide range of international examples, this readable book is targeted not just at accounting specialists but at anyone who is comfortable reading the serious financial press, is intrigued by what is going on in the massive M&A market, and is concerned with achieving better-informed M&A. As such it might be of particular interest to business executives, lawyers, bankers, and investors involved in M&A as well as graduate students interested in researching or learning about the role of accounting in M&A.

This book is the first comprehensive methodological guide for accounting researchers on Interventionist Research (IVR). It provides all the fundamental components needed for understanding what IVR is, and how to plan, design, and conduct legitimate intervention studies, which can endure the scrutiny of institutions and peer review. This text systematically opens the ‘black box’ of an alternative research paradigm seeking to contribute simultaneously to theory and practice, through direct and collaborative engagement with organisations, practitioners, managers and professionals. It mobilises the production of innovative and theoretically grounded research for academe, and of practical relevance or usefulness and interest to the field of practice.Interventionist Research in Accounting: A Methodological Approach unpacks current thinking on IVR to forge a confident path ahead for IVR through adopting a forward-thinking approach. This book recognises the remedial potential of IVR to address the research-practice-relevance gap in accounting research and deliberates the challenges of IVR in accounting. It addresses the design, development, and implementation of interventions, critical to solving real-world problems as well as guiding readers in planning the IVR project including budgetary and ethical aspects, utilising suitable research methods and data collection techniques, and establishing validity and reliability. Further, it offers guidance on selecting and managing the research team and recruiting, accessing, and retaining intervention participants; these two components are crucial to creating collaborative relationships required for effective intervention.This book is a guide serving as a valuable resource for accounting researchers conducting intervention studies, for doctoral and other research students undertaking accounting research, and academics working in universities and business schools or teaching courses in accounting and research methodology.

Funded by taxation, public spending cannot be separated from politics and ensuring efficiency and effectiveness is always high on the political and policy agenda. Accounting, accountability, governance and auditing are essential ingredients in evaluating public sector performance.Australia and New Zealand are world leaders when it comes to public sector accounting—such as being the first to introduce transaction-neutral accounting standards. This edited collection considers current issues impacting the public sector by primarily drawing upon experiences of Australia and New Zealand. Then, by combining history (from the time of the Domesday book, early sovereignty and Shakespeare) with current practice (differential reporting, international financial reporting standards, government performance, voter turnout, joined-up government and auditing practices), we use these experiences to illuminate the global issues of public sector accounting, accountability and governance.Based on rigorous research by top public sector researchers, this edited collection offers a multitude of future research ideas to enable those interested in following this pathway—whether they are in Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Europe, the United States of America, Africa or anywhere else in the world—an avenue to traverse.

Accounting Ethics Education: Teaching Virtues and Values gathers a diversity of contributions from invited, well-known experts. It promotes a comprehensive reflection around how ethics can and should be taught to accounting students, discussing and highlighting the most updated research on accounting ethics education, and it is an essential reference in the field.The subject of accounting ethics education is critical to foster ethical awareness that may prevent the way in which one acts or behaves, especially towards others. The point is that accounting education cannot exist without ethical education and accountants must be technically proficient and ethically sensible since ethical behavior is vital to the status and credibility of the accountancy profession. And this sensibility must be developed while the future professional is still cultivating his or her moral and intellectual structure within the school learning environment: character and practical reasoning are crucial because they include not only knowledge of rules and principles, and their correct application but also values and virtues.Examining multiple perspectives, Accounting Ethics Education: Teaching Virtues and Values advances the scholarly debate by providing cuttingedge and insightful research vital for all those interested and immersed in these matters. It begins with a historical perspective of accounting ethics education and continues by exploring challenges, opportunities and developments in the area. It will be of great value to academics, students, researchers and professionals in the fields of accounting, accounting education and ethics.

Auditor reporting on going-concern-related uncertainties remains one of the most challenging issues faced by external auditors. Business owners, market participants and audit regulators want an early warning of impending business failure. However, companies typically do not welcome audit opinions indicating uncertainty regarding their future viability. Thus, the auditor’s decision to issue a "going concern opinion" (GCO) is a complex and multi-layered one, facing a great deal of tension. Given such a rich context, academic researchers have examined many facets related to an auditor’s decision to issue a GCO. This monograph reviews and synthesizes 182 recent GCO studies that have appeared since the last significant review published in 2013 through the end of 2019.The authors categorize studies into the three broad areas of GCO: (1) determinants, (2) accuracy and (3) consequences. As an integral part of their synthesis, they summarize the details of each study in several user-friendly tables. After discussing and synthesizing the research, they present a discussion of opportunities for future research, including issues created or exacerbated as a result of the global COVID-19 pandemic. This monograph will be of assistance to researchers interested in exploring this area of auditor responsibility. It will also be of interest to auditing firms and individual practitioners wanting to learn what academic research has examined and found regarding this challenging aspect of audit practice. Auditing standard-setters and regulators will find it of interest as the authors review numerous studies examining issues related to audit policy and regulation, and their effects on GCO decisions. The examination of GCO research is extremely timely given the financial and business disruption caused by the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. This unprecedented global event has caused companies, auditors and professional bodies to revisit and reassess their approach to going concern, and to think even more deeply about this fundamental business imperative.

Auditor reporting on going-concern-related uncertainties remains one of the most challenging issues faced by external auditors. Business owners, market participants and audit regulators want an early warning of impending business failure. However, companies typically do not welcome audit opinions indicating uncertainty regarding their future viability. Thus, the auditor’s decision to issue a "going concern opinion" (GCO) is a complex and multi-layered one, facing a great deal of tension. Given such a rich context, academic researchers have examined many facets related to an auditor’s decision to issue a GCO. This monograph reviews and synthesizes 182 recent GCO studies that have appeared since the last significant review published in 2013 through the end of 2019.The authors categorize studies into the three broad areas of GCO: (1) determinants, (2) accuracy and (3) consequences. As an integral part of their synthesis, they summarize the details of each study in several user-friendly tables. After discussing and synthesizing the research, they present a discussion of opportunities for future research, including issues created or exacerbated as a result of the global COVID-19 pandemic. This monograph will be of assistance to researchers interested in exploring this area of auditor responsibility. It will also be of interest to auditing firms and individual practitioners wanting to learn what academic research has examined and found regarding this challenging aspect of audit practice. Auditing standard-setters and regulators will find it of interest as the authors review numerous studies examining issues related to audit policy and regulation, and their effects on GCO decisions. The examination of GCO research is extremely timely given the financial and business disruption caused by the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. This unprecedented global event has caused companies, auditors and professional bodies to revisit and reassess their approach to going concern, and to think even more deeply about this fundamental business imperative.

This is the first detailed view of the managerial accountant’s role and responsibilities in organization setting. Its aim is to foster role development: the opportunity to work at an advanced level of practice. Accounting studies develop technical skills associated with topics, and, responding to defined scenarios but provide very little guidance on what to recognizing and approaching the broad problems or challenges under conditions of uncertainty.It is a double first because it provides the managerial accountant’s compass as a general purpose analytical framework for managerial accounting independent of any selected theory and method. The metaphor of a compass creates a mental schema for its four points named (1) goals and principles, (2) boundaries and constraints, (3) methods and models, and, (4) collegial relationships. Dynastic Chinese and some other Central Asian cultures, view the center as a fifth principal direction, giving a total of five points. The center represents a high standard ethical conduct and self-care, or moral compass.Managerial Accountant’s Compass offers an integrated and systematic guide to approaching situations that are constantly changing. It gives a protective starting pattern which produces new meanings and awareness of the ambiguity and uncertainty for each situation. Ultimately the managerial accountant’s compass can help you make more effective sense of yourself, your expertise and your practice in the organization where you work, which should open career opportunities.

A History of Corporate Financial Reporting provides an understanding of the procedures and practices which constitute corporate financial reporting in Britain, at different points of time, and how and why those practices changed and became what they are now. Its particular focus is the external financial reporting practices of joint stock companies. This is worth knowing about given the widely held view that Britain (i) pioneered modern financial reporting, and (ii) played a primary role in the development of both capital markets and professional accountancy. The book makes use of a principal and agent framework to study accounting’s past, but one where the failure of managers always to supply the information that users’ desire is given full recognition. It is shown that corporate financial reporting did not develop into its current state in a straightforward and orderly fashion. Each era produces different environmental conditions and imposes new demands on accounting. A proper understanding of accounting developments therefore requires a careful examination of the interrelationship between accountants and accounting techniques on the one hand and, on the other, the social and economic context within which changes took place. The book’s corporate coverage starts with the legendary East India Company, created in 1600, and continues through the heyday of the statutory trading companies founded to build Britain’s canals (commencing in the 1770s) and railways (commencing c.1829) to focus, principally, on the limited liability company fashioned by the Joint Stock Companies Act 1844 and the Limited Liability Act 1855. The story terminates in 2005 when listed companies were required to prepare their consolidated accounts in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards, thus signalling the effective end of British accounting.

Successful innovation is a true challenge and especially when today’s companies are intertwined in close inter-organisational relationships and networks with e.g. customers and suppliers. Research has indicated that accounting can play important roles in such innovation processes, but there is little in-depth systematic knowledge about this issue. Accounting, Innovation and Inter-Organisational Relationships gathers leading researchers from all around the world to argue for the importance of more systematic knowledge about accounting, innovation and inter-organisational relationships.Accounting, Innovation and Inter-Organisational Relationships thus becomes an important source for researchers and practitioners interested in accounting and inter-organisational relationships as well as the related disciplines of management, marketing, innovation and strategy.

This book explores corporate environmental discourse by examining a sample of corporate environmental reports through the lens of environmental philosophy. Findings include the predominant use of a dualistic approach towards nature, which highlights the perceived ‘separateness’ of companies from the natural world. Also explored are the corporate articulations of interconnectivity and transcendence, two philosophical approaches that are also in common use in western culture. The expression of these themes reveals the discursive underpinnings of a harmful relationship with nature. Exploring the ways in which discourse informs corporate relationships with nature allows for an in-depth ‘diagnosis’ of current environmental problems.The history of environmental philosophy demonstrates how some powerful philosophical approaches have shaped the western relationship with nature over time, and continue to do so through corporate environmental reporting. Corporate Environmental Reporting: The Western Approach to Nature demonstrates how corporate reporting is used to reduce the perception of the corporate responsibility, and contributes to the erosion of broader cultural restraints against the harmful treatment of nature. As such, discourse is integral to the survival of the world which we – and other members of our biotic community – are utterly reliant on. It shows the latest state of knowledge on the topic and will be of interest both to students at an advanced level, academics and reflective practitioners. It will be of interest to researchers, academics, and students in the fields of accounting, management, environmental philosophy and sustainable management.

Financial globalization paired with the relaxation of constraints on capital flows between countries before the 2008 crisis, increased merger activities among the World’s largest stock exchanges. The financial crisis of 2008 had a severe impact on the development of equity markets, corporate financial stability, and corporate governance, and a multi-step approach is needed to fully appreciate the causes and effects of this event. This book engages the separate strands of literature to advance a more holistic understanding of whether and how the national institutional environments in selected countries around the world has been changed after the crisis. Institutions and Accounting Practices after the Financial Crisis: International Perspective sets out a framework for the analysis of institutional environments and accounting practices in in selected countries around the world during the pre-crisis period, followed by an examination of the impact of the crisis. It scrutinizes the changing roles of debt and equity markets; the shift in accounting practices and capital financing choices due to the economic downturn; and the lessons that can be obtained from the financial crisis, while considering the institutional architecture of international business environments. This ongoing process of integration and globalization increases interdependence between world markets, and allows shocks to propagate across national and continental lines, making the understanding of international markets vitally important to American investors.Aimed at primarily researchers, academics and students in the fields of international accounting, management and finance, Institutions and Accounting Practices after the Financial Crisis: International Perspective will additionally be of value to practitioners and policy makers, supplying them with information regarding the changes in accounting practices and risk evaluation due to the crisis.

Accounting education ought to prepare future professionals to enter a principles-based, rules-oriented field of activity wherein technical knowledge of accounting standards (principles, rules and decision procedures) and ethical awareness (the capacity to discern moral issues and resolve ethical dilemmas) are crucial. Accounting education is best performed by the accountant’s adherence to the principles of the accounting profession and by individuals and firms following the appropriate rules, act according to the codes of conduct adopted by their profession, exercise clear judgment whenever they address financial transactions and consider/assess the state of a given business.Accounting Ethics Education: Making Ethics Real gathers a diversity of contributions from invited well-known experts and other specialists. It promotes comprehensive reflection around key trends, discussing and highlighting the most updated research on accounting ethics education, being an essential and useful reference in the field. In the performance of accounting tasks, the accountant should be educated and supported in the skills development and habit formation to solve accounting problems, recognize moral issues and resolve ethical dilemmas that will be encountered in their special tasks. Also, this book provides a moral map for identifying and acting on values when difficult situations arise. Examining multiple perspectives, the book improves the scholarly debate by providing cutting-edge and insightful research vital for all those interested and immersed in these matters. It will be of great value to academics, students, researchers and professionals in the fields of accounting, accounting education and ethics.

This book discusses the role of business models in corporate reporting. It illustrates the evolution of non-financial reporting, the importance of business model reporting, and the main conceptualisations of business models. It also offers a methodological contribution to the assessment of business model reporting. Finally, it discusses the main implication of business model reporting for different categories of subjects and some challenges related to this kind of disclosure.Readers will understand the role of business models in the non-financial reporting landscape. They will also gain an understanding of how business models can help users of the annual report contextualise other non-financial items disclosed. However, effective business model reporting implies paying attention to certain features that define its quality. This theme is discussed in the empirical part of the book and in the section devoted to implications for preparers, users, and regulators.As large companies in the EU and the UK have to disclose the business model in the annual report, this book will be of interest to preparers and users of financial statements, regulators involved in the ongoing non-financial regulatory process, and professional bodies. It will also be of interest to academics interested in the investigation of non-financial reporting.

There is considerable national variation in the professionalization and status of the management accountant. Although researchers from different countries have contributed to our knowledge about tasks and roles, we have limited insights into the development, education, and socio-cultural influences in different countries and surprisingly little is known about the local and national contexts in which these roles are learned and performed.This book bridges this research gap using two complementary perspectives. The first part explores management accountants in a range of different national contexts, providing information about country-specific historical developments and educational standards as well as specific roles and tasks. The second part focusses on important global developments that will increasingly impact management accountants in the future, such as sustainability, the financial crisis, technology and changing roles. By combining local context with a global overview, this insightful volume provides an agenda for future research which will be of great interest to scholars and advanced students in management accounting throughout the world.

Italian accounting has a long and honourable tradition of theoretical and applied analysis of the accounting and reporting function, perceived and defined much more broadly than in the Anglo-Saxon tradition. The high point of this perhaps, is the creation of what is known as Economia Aziendale (EA). The antecedents, genesis and later developments are presented here in detail by highly knowledgeable specialists in the field.EA takes as a prerequisite the necessity of the business (entity/azienda) to ensure its own long-run survival. This requires that the necessary resources are retained and preserved, so operating capital maintenance, by definition future-oriented, is essential. It requires a focus on the particular business organization, entity-specific and consistent with today's notion of the business model. Entity-specific information relevant to current and future cash flows is a necessary pre-requisite for ensuring long-run survival, which historical cost accounting, or fair value (being market-specific not entity-specific) satisfactorily achieve. Flexibility of valuation and of reporting, always relevant to the specific asset at the specific time in the specific place, is a necessary condition for effective management. This is exactly the focus of EA and its analysis and tradition. Scholars and advanced students of international regulation and accounting, as well as accounting history, will find this an invaluable guide to a vibrant, scholarly tradition of great practical relevance today.

Interventionist research has been proposed as one way of increasing societal impact of management accounting (MA) research. However, there are no guidelines regarding what sort of phenomena would be the most suitable ones to be studied using research interventions. This book builds on top of the methodological literature of interventionist management accounting research, as well as the published studies applying it.Through selected case studies, Interventionist Management Accounting Research shows how societal impact of MA research can be increased by not only applying IVR approach, but also looking into how MA is used in the borderlines between MA and other organizational functions. In many cases, MA research can provide tools and concepts helping to understand contemporary trends within the business environment, thereby naturally providing potential for increasing the societal impact of scholarly work. In particular, this book discusses how to position empirical research endeavours with interventionist elements in a way to ensure important theory contributions with outcomes interesting also outside the MA academia, whether that means MA practitioners, managers in general or scholars in other fields of management.Aimed at primarily researchers, academics and students in the fields of research methodology, management accounting and interventionist research, this book provides methodological guidance on how to execute research projects with interventionist elements, aiming at strong theory contribution with broader societal impacts. Focusing on research in accounting and management, this book also provides interesting insights to scholars and doctoral students in other fields of management research.

Accounting is a social practice: it should be evaluated in terms of its contribution to a notion of social well-being. In order to do this, this book elaborates a critique of contemporary accounting. The authors encourage those with a close interest in accounting to make the search for a more emancipatory and enabling accounting a core area of their interest. The book will stimulate debate and activity in the arenas of education, research, practice and policy-making.

This book explores the role of accountants in business and society. The final work of Louis Goldberg, Professor Emeritus at the University of Melbourne, it aims to raise awareness of the existence and importance of fundamental issues that are often ignored or by-passed in contemporary discussion of accounting. The sixteen chapters assess exactly what accountants do in carrying out their work.This work will make essential reading for scholars or historians of accounting, and will also interest philosophers and practicing accountants.