An examination of the link between management accounting and sustainable development in the Swedish popular press

Abstract

Background and problem: To what extent companies integrate sustainability work into their management control systems is relatively unknown. Several case studies have indicated that companies tend to portray themselves as being sustainable, but in practice only been that to a limited extent. In line with management fashion theory, the study takes the view that the external agents exert influence on the development in practice. How the link between management accounting and sustainable development is communicated from the printed popular press and thus how this may influence practices within organizations is still unexplored. Purpose: The purpose of the study is to expand the knowledge on the relationship between the supply and demand of management fashions on the basis of print-media discourse. Specifically, focusing on the amount and content of discourse about the link between management accounting and sustainable development, the study attempts to provide insight into the extent and nature of management accounting for sustainability in practice. Method: The study uses print media indicators supplemented by a content analysis. The data consist of articles linking management accounting to sustainable development and was gathered from the database ‘Retriever research’. Results and conclusion: The results suggest that the number of articles linking management accounting to sustainable development is low. The content in the articles often emphasizes the environmental aspect but in all no general coordinated pattern in the discourse was identified. Our results suggest that the dissemination from the supply side is relatively inactive and does not effectively spread the message. This implies that the supply side only to a limited extent promotes and influences the practices linking management accounting to sustainable development on the user-side.