Separation – integration – and now …? - An historical perspective on the relationship between German management accounting and financial accounting

German accounting has traditionally followed a dual ledger approach with strictly separated internal cost accounting, as the basis for management information, and external financial accounting focusing on creditor protection and based on the commercial law. However, the increased adoption of integrated accounting system implies a significant change in the relationship between financial and management accounting systems. We use Hegelian dialectic to trace the historical development of German accounting from separated systems towards antithetical propositions of full integration, and the emergence of partial integration as the synthesis of this transformation process. For this reason, our paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the literature on the relationship between financial and management accounting in Germany. On this basis, we elaborate how financial accounting in Germany has been shaped by its economic context and legislation, and how financial accounting – accompanied by institutional pressures – in turn influenced management accounting. We argue that the changing relationship between management and financial accounting in the German context illustrates how current accounting practice is shaped not only by its environment, but also by its historical path. Based on this reasoning, we discuss several avenues for future research

Hydrothermal carbonization for sludge disposal in Germany: A comparative assessment for industrial-scale scenarios in 2030

The efficient use of biogenic residues can make a significant contribution to increase resource efficiency. Due to its high energy efficiency, hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) is being discussed as a potentially suitable technology for particularly wet and sludgy biogenic residues. In Germany, however, it has not yet been established at industrial continuous operation. Among others, this is due to missing solutions for the economic treatment of the high organic loads in the liquid by-product and insufficient knowledge on long-term processing. Nevertheless, it is still expected that HTC could be able to contribute in the future, especially for sewage sludge disposal. Whether and under what conditions this could be the case is the subject of this study. The competitiveness of modeled cases for industrial sewage sludge HTC, which address different future paths, compared to thermal sludge treatment is investigated by using a multi-criteria instrument. Results show that HTC can only compete with the reference technology if certain framework conditions are given. Particularly, an efficient phosphorus recycling should be integrated and the production costs of the solid product should be at least less than €325 per metric ton according to this case study. The treatment performance of the liquid phase should be as high as possible whereby costs for further treatment equipment should be minimized, so that mentioned productions costs are not exceeded. This article met the requirements for a gold-gold JIE data openness badge described at http://jie.click/badges