Markus Milne

University of Canterbury | UC · School of Business

We offer a counter-narrative to those accounts of specific species extinction. Our intention is to offer a counter narrative that places humanity’s ways of organising at the core and recognises that only fundamental re-appraisal of (western) humanity’s current taken-for-granted narratives offers any hope for biodiversity and sustainability. This...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine how legitimacy is gained, maintained or repaired through direct action with salient stakeholders and/or through external reporting, by using a number of empirical case vignettes within a single case study organisation. Design/methodology/approach The study investigates a foreign affiliate of a large...

Purpose This paper explores diverse practices of the giving and demanding of democratic accountability within a case of conflict around deep-sea petroleum exploration in Aotearoa New Zealand. These practices include submissions and consultations, partnership between Indigenous Peoples and a settler-colonial government and dissensus. These are theor...

This paper adds to a small literature that questions the relevance of integrated reporting for a range of decision-makers. In particular, this study complements work on financial stakeholders by concentrating on the needs and work of non-financial civic and environmentally focused stakeholders. The paper outlines non-financial stakeholders' perspec...

This paper responds to calls for a pluralist approach to accounting and accountability research. It contributes to an emerging literature on stakeholder engagement that seeks to problematise extant practice and enquiry. Based on an environmental dispute over coal mining, it analyses stakeholder engagement through the lens of agonistic democracy. We...

This study responds to calls for more research to understand how sustainability control systems feature (or do not feature) in short-term operational and long-term strategic decision-making. An in-depth case study of a large multinational organisation undertaking several rounds of sustainability reporting is presented. Data collection was extensive...

This research is motivated by a growing belief that natural capital accounting (NCA) can assist organisations in increasing their stewardship over the ecological elements they effect and in some cases control. However, these beliefs are largely based on conceptual developments about the use of NCA. It has been argued that by monetising these effect...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to reflect upon the focus and changing nature of measuring academic accounting research quality. The paper addresses contemporary changes in academic publishing, metrics for determining research quality and the possible impacts on accounting scholars. These are considered in relation to the core values of interd...

Based on 92 large listed US firms, Cho et al. (2012) provide an exploratory empirical examination of the relationships between corporate environmental disclosures as per stand-alone and annual reports, measures of corporate environmental performance and corporate environmental reputation, and membership (or not) of the Dow Jones Sustainability Inde...

Article impact statement: New collaborations with accounting research can improve conservation impact of ecosystem‐based information systems. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved

Udom Chirapattanakorn’s recently completed Masters’ research at the University of Canterbury casts fresh light on the state of non-financial reporting among New Zealand’s Stock Exchange (NZX) listed organisations. It also provides insights into the likelihood of whether reporting might improve given the NZX’s recent move to revise its governance co...

We argue the need for academics to resist and challenge the hegemonic discourse of sustainable development within the corporate context. Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory provides a useful framework for recognizing the complex nature of sustainable development and a way of conceptualizing counter-hegemonies. Published empirical research which an...

The voluntary carbon market (VCM) is a relatively mature field where institutions have become firmly established. This empirical paper explores findings obtained from interviewing key actors within the VCM in New Zealand, at a time when the organizational field was beginning to emerge (2010/2011). Fourteen semi-structured interviews were carried ou...

We study companies that do not produce a sustainability report in contexts where institutionalisation is assumed. Based on a careful analysis of interaction patterns between non-reporting companies, sustainability interest groups, and peer organisations we find patterns of discursive and material isomorphism that suggest sustainability reporting is...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to review and synthesise academic research in environmental accounting and demonstrate its shortcomings. It provokes scholars to rethink their conceptions of “accounts” and “nature”, and alongside others in this AAAJ special issue, provides the basis for an agenda for theoretical and empirical research that begi...

It is now six years since the International Integrated Reporting Council released its discussion paper about a new type of company reporting. Integrated reporting purports to offer a new way to capture organisational value creation and to communicate the integrated nature of company performance. Considerable experimentation has occurred around the...

Climate change and solutions to solving this wicked problem require a mixed methods research approach that draws on quantitative and qualitative inquiry together. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate the applicability (and effectiveness) of a mixed methods approach applied to research into the voluntary carbon market (VCM), a key path avai...

The uptake of sustainability reporting in New Zealand has been pretty dismal. While a few companies produced social and/or environmental reports in the early 1990s, and the practice diffused a little during the 2000s, New Zealand remains an outlier with the vast bulk of New Zealand’s largest organisations still not producing such reports. Early com...

Purpose This paper explores the role of reputation management and legitimacy in driving company response behaviours around short-term ‘sustainability’ issues. Current research is mainly limited to studies on external reporting. We add to literature by conducting an in-depth case study exploring the internal mechanisms and behaviours which lead up t...

An exploration of the nonsense of there being a superior research method, or there being any basis for claims of the superiority of quantitative over qualitative research. Drawing principally from Feyerabend the paper argues for the importance of issue and problem and for the matter of method to be secondary to this.

A paper in Business & Society available at the following link (http://bas.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/10/23/0007650315611459.abstract) The paper raises questions about the role of academic research in resisting hegemonic constructions of sustainable development in a business context.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is first, to investigate empirically the plurality of understanding surrounding sustainability held by those working in the business sector, and second, to consider the likelihood of a dialogic accounting that would account for the plurality of perspectives identified. Design/methodology/approach – The subjects...

Climate change has the potential to dramatically change the world as we know, both in terms of the environment and the way in which societies operate. Public policy responses to climate change continue to evolve, with many western economies proposing mechanisms for emission reductions, for example, through a tax on carbon or emissions trading schem...

The purpose of this paper is to introduce the perspectives of companies that do not produce a sustainability report in to theorising about the uptake and spread of sustainability reporting. We undertook semi-structured interviews with managers of 23 non-reporting firms in Australia. The interviews are analysed using institutional theory to explore...

Integrated reporting (IR) is a global reporting phenomenon that promises to "catalyse a more cohesive and efficient approach to corporate reporting" to address problems of contemporary reporting regimes. The primary purpose of IR is to explain how organisations create value over time. The goal of the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC...

In this paper, we identify and discuss how sustainability reporting has spread throughout the Australian business community over the past twenty years or so. We identified all Australian business organisations that have produced a sustainability report since 1995, and we undertook an interview survey with managers of reporting companies. By incorpo...

Sustainability reporting emerged on the corporate scene nearly 30 years ago as a key mechanism through which business organisations would manage a transition to a new business landscape dominated by greater concern and consciousness about sustainability. While it has become something of a feature on the corporate agenda in some parts of the world,...

This paper offers a critique of sustainability reporting and, in particular, a critique of the modern disconnect between the practice of sustainability reporting and what we consider to be the urgent issue of our era: sustaining the life-supporting ecological systems on which humanity and other species depend. Tracing the history of such reporting...

We critically examine organizational representations of sustainable development in 197 publicly available corporate reports. Using a discourse theoretical approach, we analyze how these organizations have come to "know" sustainable development, and we consider the conditions that made this knowledge possible. Themes identified are (a) enlightened s...

The New Zealand (NZ) government, under Prime Minister Helen Clark's Labour-led administration, sought in 2007 to move government core organisations towards carbon neutrality. In late 2008, the NZ government changed from a Labour-led to a National-led (traditionally more conservative) government, and this saw a shift in its carbon neutrality agenda,...

This paper investigates how organizations represent themselves in relation to sustainable development in 365 publicly available corporate reports from 1992 to 2010. This period of reporting captures the emergence and development of corporate reporting on sustainable development within the context of the study, New Zealand. Laclau and Mouffe’s disco...

Purpose: To examine and interpret the activity, arguments, and policy proposals put forward over a four-year period by a major state-owned fossil-fuel company, on climate-change policy and emissions trading in New Zealand. Design/methodology/approach: The signing of the Kyoto protocol by the New Zealand Government in 1997, followed by the introduct...

This paper provides a critical introduction to the issue about Analyzing the quality, meaning and accountability of organizational reporting and communication. The present paper begins by addressing why such analyses are important and then introduces each of the papers that appear in the issue. The contribution involves identifying and reviewing ho...

The aim of this paper is to promote further research that analyzes the quality, meaning and accountability of organizational reporting and corporate communication. These issues are critical if accounting is to satisfy its role by providing information to the public. In this paper, we conclude this special issue by reiterating the potential for rese...

Motivated by our concern that business attempts to take up an agenda for sustainability are more likely to move us away from than towards an ecologically viable future, we investigate how sustainability is constructed for business, and the possibilities a pragmatic philosophy offers for doing so. Our case in point is the 'triple bottom line' (TBL)...

*The names of the authors are listed in alphabetical order, indicating their Substantial insights have been gained over the past 20 years into factors related to companies ' social disclosure practices. Unfortunately researchers have yet to respond to Ullmann's (1985) criticism that the field is plagued by the absence of a comprehensive t...

British and European companies have recently produced a number of 'best practice' examples of environmental reporting as indicated by the environmental reporting awards in the UK and Europe. However, studies have suggested that both Australia and New Zealand are lagging behind in this style of reporting. This study attempts to assess corporate reac...

Purpose This paper aims to set out several of the key issues and areas of the inter‐disciplinary field of climate change research based in accounting and accountability, and to introduce the papers that compose this AAAJ special issue. Design/methodology/approach The paper provides an overview of issues in the science of climate, as well as an ecl...

The New Zealand (NZ) government, under Clark’s Labour administration in 2007, sought to move government core organizations towards carbon neutrality. In late 2008, the NZ government changed from a Labour to a National Government, and this saw a shift in its carbon neutrality agenda, including the dismantling of the Carbon Neutral Public Service (CN...

This paper reveals that the process–oriented learning approaches prescribed for accounting education by various international accounting bodies (e.g., Accounting Education Change Commission), and most recently endorsed by the New Zealand Society of Accountants in its 1994 publication, Admissions Policy, are currently underused at New Zealand tertia...

This paper argues that the basis for change in accounting education to more active student involvement is much broader than the need to supply the accounting professions with graduates who possess wider skills and competencies. Active student engagement, in fact, is seen by several educationalists as an essential ingredient to all student learning...

The present study draws from and extends experimental design frameworks used by Chan and Milne (1999) and Milne and Patten (2002). It extends this work using external negative news media contrasted with (positive) corporate environmental report disclosures, by focusing on respondents’ potential employment decisions and their perceptions of organiza...

Purpose Through an analysis of corporate sustainable development reporting, this paper seeks to examine critically language use and other visual (re)presentations of sustainable development within the business context. It aims to provide a framework to interpret and tease out business representations of sustainable development. Such representations...

The article reports on the importance of stakeholders confidence on sustainable development reporting which is continuing to grow even at declining rate in many countries. It notes that sustainability reporting and its assurance are growing practices but its development in New Zealand appears to be slow. It adds that assurance statement varies by c...

The article discusses corporate environmentalism, focusing on the theory and discourse surrounding such issues. Claims about green corporate behaviors and sustainable development are discussed and the concepts of ecological modernization and reformist environmentalism are analyzed. Critical viewpoints are described and the conflicts between traditi...

This study examines the rationales for and geographical outcomes of the post 1988 changes in port governance in New Zealand and their implications from a policy perspective. The study offers insights into the interrelationship between global processes and local places in the context of economic deregulation, a devolved infrastructure planning manda...

Purpose This editorial seeks to reflect on seven contributions to this AAAJ special issue and on the interdisciplinary accounting, auditing and accountability movement and its future directions. The seven papers were invited plenary contributions to the APIRA 2007 conference, which in part served to celebrate 20 years of AAAJ . The important role o...

Purpose This paper aims to introduce the AAAJ special issue on “Accounting as codified discourse”, explicate the idea of codification and locate the notion of a “codified discourse” within the broader tradition of discourse studies in management. Design/methodology/approach The approach is conceptual and discursive, and provides a theoretical fram...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the meaning of sustainable development held by New Zealand “thought leaders” and “influencers” promoting sustainability, business, or sustainable business. It seeks to compare inductively derived worldviews with theories associated with sustainability and the humanity‐nature relationship. Design/meth...

Purpose: The paper aims to highlight the value and potential of discursive approaches – in particular for the study of corporate social and environmental reports and communication. Design/methodology/approach: A review of published literature on social and environmental, or 'sustainability' reporting is undertaken which identifies research gaps and...

This paper provides a critical exploration of the journey metaphor promoted in much business discourse on sustainability—in corporate reports and advertisements, and in commentaries by business and professional associations. The portrayal of ‘sustainability as a journey’ evokes images of organizational adaptation, learning, progress, and a movement...

This paper reports the results of an interpretive textual analysis of New Zealand's most consistent and arguably leading reporter on environmental and social impacts. Since 1995, Watercare Services Ltd, an Auckland-based water utility, has been an award winning environmental reporter. The paper works with all of the organization's reports since 199...

The use of students as surrogates for non-students has been a controversial issue in behavioural accounting research. However, the empirical evidence on student surrogates suggests that students can be adequate surrogates for practitioners in decision-making tasks. This present paper seeks to examine the adequacy of accounting students as surrogate...

In the context of an accounting curriculum that has been significantly modified over the past decade in response to calls for skills development, this study investigates the impacts of curriculum on students' levels of communication apprehension. An emerging concern in accounting is that attempts made to improve students' communication skills may f...

A flippant muse on the status of a published ranking study

No abstract available.

The title of this paper owes acknowledgment to Robert Jackall's (1988) Moral Mazes: The world of corporate managers. Jackall notes that "magic lanterns" were the earliest devices for projecting images, being invented in 1644 by Athanasius Kircher – a Jesuit priest. He uses the metaphor to explore symbolism and public relations in the context of bus...

Triple bottom line reporting involves the measurement, management and reporting of economic, environmental and social performance indicators in a single report. Over the past few years an increased number of New Zealand companies have produced such reports, due mostly to the promotional efforts of the New Zealand Business Council for Sustainable De...

Non-refereed polemic

This paper explores the role that environmental disclosures might play in producing a legitimating effect on investors within the context of the chemical industry. By way of an experimental decision case it examines effects of negative, and the offsetting effects of positive, environmental disclosures surrounding chemical firms’ liabilities for tox...

This paper critically reviews the literature seeking to establish evidence for a positive accounting theory of corporate social disclosures. Following Reiter (1998), the paper provides detailed evidence and an illustration of how positive accounting theorists’ attempts to colonize social and environmental accounting research have proved a failure....

No abstract available.

The enhanced motivation and performance benefits associated with the use of enriched work environments (i.e., high task identity, variety, and significance; worker autonomy; and frequent performance feedback) have been well established (Hackman & Oldham, 1975, 1976, 1980). The present study tests whether these benefits can also be achieved in the c...

This paper provides an extensive review of the developments of problem-based learning (PBL). The paper describes an idealized PBL format and outlines the learning rationale for such an approach. The paper also reviews the empirical evidence from the medical literature, where PBL has undergone its greatest application. This literature, which has gro...

This paper reports the results of a citation-based analysis of accounting research journals. From a database developed from the citations to 27 accounting research journals within those same 27 research journals over the ten-year period 1990-1999, this paper reports the relative use (in terms of citation) of the 27 journals. From both the entire ci...

In the December 1998 issue of this journal, Wilkinson and Durden (hereafter WD) offer evidence about the 1992-1997 publishing productivity of New Zealand's seven university-based accounting departments. Their measure of publishing productivity, constructed on the quantity of academic and professional journal articles published during the period by...

This paper reports the results of a study on the usefulness of typical social disclosures from corporate annual reports for investment decision-making. Rather than seek to solely survey respondents about their stated behaviour, the present study also seeks to examine if narrative social disclosures in the annual report actually impact on the behavi...

Contrary to international accounting bodies' calls for the adoption of learner-centred approaches in accounting education, several recent studies (e.g. May et al., 1995; Adler and Milne, Accounting Education: an International Journal 6 (2), 1997) and further survey-based evidence from this paper suggest that learner-centred approaches have not been...

Following Dierkes and Antal's (1985) model, this study examines the decision usefulness of narrative disclosures on firms' environmental performance by focusing on how investors allocate their investment funds. Using an experimental design, the study examines investors' reactions to two states of corporate environmental performance: one in which th...

This paper reports the results of an exploratory study of inter-coder reliability of annual report social and environmental disclosures content analysis. Using the sentence-based coding instruments and decision rules from Hackston and Milne (1996), this study reports the co-agreement levels reached by three coders over five rounds of testing 49 ann...

Substantial insights have been gained over the past 20 years into factors related to companies' social disclosure practices. Unfortunately researchers have yet to respond to Ullmann' s (1985) criticism that the field is plagued by the absence of a comprehensive theory explaining why companies make social disclosures. The present study begins to add...

Wambsganss and Sanford propose that utilities capitalise sulfur dioxide emission permits gifted to them by the Environmental Protection Agency. This commentary critically rejects such a proposal. Wambsganss and Sanford's proposal relies on unacceptably narrow assumptions that utilities and their shareholders own rights to pollute and that economic...