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Drawing upon Abrahamson's (1991) typology of innovation diffusion, this study aims to investigate the factors underpinning diffusion of sustainability key performance indicators (SKPIs) in a developing country.

A qualitative study was conducted in Sri Lanka involving semi-structured interviews with managers, as users of SKPIs (demand-side), and both consultants and academics, as agents in diffusion process (supply-side).

Diffusion of SKPIs was found to be driven by efficient-choice considerations, with fashion motives intertwined with these. The diffusion was influenced by developing country context issues relating to market competition, education, government and culture. It was somewhat surprising that market forces played a key role to the extent they did. Minimal stakeholder pressure was found to undermine the diffusion process, contrasting with developed countries in which key stakeholders act as catalysts. The developing country context appears to slow down the pace, rather than alter the pattern, of diffusion of SKPIs.

This study is limited by its focus on SKPI adopters, which does not permit to draw insights regarding motivations of non-adopters.

This study draws upon Abrahamson's typology to explore the diffusion of SKPIs in the poorly understood developing country context. The findings provide insights into driving forces behind diffusion of SKPIs, suggesting the developing country context creates “stickiness” that influences pace rather than the pattern of diffusion of SKPIs.

This study aims to examine the role of performance management systems (PMSs) in enabling logic blending to manage institutional complexity and tensions arising from coexisting institutional logics.

This research uses a case study of an Australian non-government organisation (NGO) operating in an institutional field dominated by the state government, in which policy reform jolted the balance between institutional logics. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews, archival documents and observations.

We find the policy reform required the NGO to transform from a wholly care focus to accommodate a more balanced approach with a focus on care coupled with efficiency, outcome delivery and performance measurement. The NGO responded by revising its purpose, strategy and operational model and by seeking to address the imperatives of two dominant and often competing care and managerial logics. We find this was achieved through logic blending, in which PMSs played a pivotal role, with the formalisation and collaboration processes mobilising different elements of PMSs, mobilising some elements differently or not mobilising some elements at all.

This study highlights the central role of PMSs in managing tensions between and the complexity arising from coexisting institutional logics through logic blending, a form of enduring compromise. This study extends the accounting logics and performance management literature by developing the understanding of what constitutes logic blending and how it is distinct from other forms of compromise.

There is a growing interest in research focusing on performance management practices in the public sector, but research is still limited with regards to public primary healthcare services (PHSs), which play an important role in national healthcare systems. These organisations are frequently criticised for alleged poor performance management practices and misuse of resources, though such claims are not always substantiated. The purpose of this study is to examine performance management practices in public PHSs.

Three case studies of PHSs organisations were conducted resulting in interview material and archival data. Otley's performance management framework was used to examine the data.

It is found that the performance management systems of the studied PHSs were disjoint and lacked consistency and coherence. Lack of direction and motivational were key issues in PHSs. Furthermore, the observations indicate that vertical controls between PHSs and parent organisation were weak and accountability poor.

Generalisability of findings and social desirability bias are the important limitations. A key research implication is that the conceptual framework adopted can be meaningfully used to generate insights into performance management issues in public sector healthcare organisations.

The study highlights the implications of the poor design and use of performance management systems and highlights areas for improvement in the organisations studied, and potentially across the sector.

This study is the first to draw upon Otley's performance management framework to examine performance management practices in PHSs and to demonstrate its usefulness in this context.

Increased awareness regarding environmental issues has encouraged organisations to use environmental management accounting (EMA), which has been said to deliver many benefits to users, including an increase in innovation. There is, however, little evidence to consubstantiate this claim and thus this paper aims to investigate the issue. It also seeks to examine the role of strategy with EMA use and innovation.

The paper uses a survey designed and administered to management accountants and financial controllers in large Australian businesses.

The analysis suggests that EMA use has a positive association with process innovation, but not with product innovation. It also finds that the effect of strategy on innovation was driven by the level of commitment to research and development. However, no statistically significant relationship between strategy and EMA use was found. The key driver of EMA use was industry.

The small sample size is the most important limitation of this study and affected the statistical power of the analysis conducted. The results need to be interpreted with caution.

The study suggests that EMA use is associated with process innovation, implying that economic benefits may be realised by using this technique, while simultaneously enhancing environmental performance.

This is the first study to provide cross‐sectional evidence of the relationship between strategy, EMA use and innovation. It is also the first to propose a research instrument to measure EMA use as a multi‐item construct.

Drawing upon the theory of planned behaviour (TPB), the purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of managers’ attitude and other psychological factors on sustainability reporting (SR). In doing so, this paper aims to respond to calls for the use of previously untried theoretical approaches on the SR literature.

The study uses a survey of top and middle-level managers of listed and non-listed companies in Sri Lanka. Data were analysed using a Partial Least Squares path model.

The findings indicate that managers’ attitude towards SR, belief about stakeholder pressure, and their capacity to control SR behaviour influence their intention to engage in SR and, indirectly, actual corporate SR behaviour (in the context of listed companies). However, whilst managers of non-listed companies exhibit the intention to engage in SR, the lack of a relationship between intention and behaviour suggests that companies face barriers towards SR due to lack of actual control over the SR process. Religion, in the case of non-listed companies, and education, in the case of listed companies, has some degree of influence over managers’ beliefs.

The use of self-reported SR behaviour is a limitation but necessary to maintain anonymity of respondents. The low levels of self-reported SR correspond with past evidence on actual SR in developing countries.

The results show that managers’ psychological factors are important in determining SR behaviour in companies. Specifically, this highlights the possible roles that regulators, professional bodies and companies can play in improving educational and cultural influences towards improving the level of SR.

This is the first study to apply the TPB to understand SR behaviour by integrating psychological factors relating to managers’ belief, attitudes and perceptions.

This paper sets out to demonstrate a conceptual structure for the study of performance management systems which subsumes one major aspect of management accounting activity, namely performance evaluation and control.

The approach takes the form of a review of management accounting practices and change over the past 20 years, to give insight into how research can become more fruitful in the future.

Management accounting is argued to be an unhelpful conceptual category in developing insight and theories in the field of organizational control practices. A wider framework is proposed that has fewer limitations.

Many of the practical implications have already been observed in organizational practices; for academic research, the practical implication is the need to move beyond the confines of an artificial management function and seek to establish a more appropriate basis for theorisation.

The paper gives guidelines and criteria for evaluating the likely contribution of different research approaches. It is hoped that these will be helpful in encouraging researchers to move outside conventional boundaries in developing fresh approaches to understanding long‐standing issues and practices.