A study of policy makers' view upon the link between sustainability and management accounting

Abstract

The aim of this study is to provide empirical evidence of policy makers’ view upon the link between sustainability and management accounting. The study is based on a case study of nine different policy makers and performed through personal interviews with one individual in each organisation. The frame of reference was collected during the entire study and is based on literature about policy makers, sustainability and management accounting. This study established that the majority of the interviewed policy makers do not approach the link between sustainability and management accounting. The reason for this has shown to be a lack of demand or a lack of resources for sustainable actions from their members. The policy makers with an active position acknowledged two different ways to approach the link. However, many of these policy makers struggled to exemplify their actions towards the link, therefore we suspect that few actions are taken in practise. This study provides empirical evidence of policy makers’ view upon the link between sustainability and management accounting and give one explanation to the slow development of this connection.