Environmental Management Accounting Development: Institutionalization, Adoption and Practice

Abstract

This dissertation explores the notion of environmental management accounting innovation and aims to explore how they are created, if they are adopted or not into companies and the consequences thereof, and finally how they are practiced. Research methods combine participant observation, semi-structured interviews and secondary data. This dissertation is composed of three articles that together explore the different facets of management accounting innovations. The first article tackles the question of how innovations get created and on their path to institutionalization. The focus is on the actors and their strategies, the who and how of the institutionalization process. Through an in-depth case study of one organization, the second article uncovers the process of the non-adoption of a carbon accounting methodology. The third article analyzes the practices surrounding an accounting innovation in a multinational.

Overall, this dissertation makes three main theoretical contributions on the specific institutional work developed by elite, the role of internal legitimacy in organizational legitimacy, and on the processes of co-emergence of new practices. This research on EMA innovations also contributes to further understanding how sustainable development can be pursued through accounting in organizations.

Keywords: management accounting innovation (MAI), environmental management accounting, elites, institutional work, internal legitimacy, organizational legitimacy, institutional theory, carbon accounting, practice theory

JEL Classification: M00, M14, M40