Corporate reporting on the Sustainable Development Goals: A structured literature review and research agenda

Purpose – The SDGs framework emerged as a guidepost for the transition to sustainable development. To achieve this transition, companies are encouraged to integrate these goals into their business strategies, processes, and corporate reporting cycle. The purpose of this paper is to review and critique the corporate SDGs reporting literature, develop insights into the state of this research field and identify a future research agenda. Design/methodology/approach – Using a structured literature review methodology, the paper reviews 65 empirical papers published in this field to identify how the current research is developing, offers a critique, and identifies future research avenues to advance this field. Findings – Corporate SDGs reporting is developing as a research area of great importance. The findings reveal that current SDGs reporting literature lacks theorisation, overly focuses on publicly listed companies and succinctly describes organisations’ engagement with the SDGs as superficial. Surprisingly, regions such as North America, the United Kingdom, and other emerging economies have received less attention from scholars. Further, only a few authors have specialised in this field and there currently exists low levels of international collaborations among authors as well as practitioners. Originality – The paper offers a comprehensive structured review of the empirical papers published on corporate SDGs reporting. It contributes to deepening this nascent research field by identifying five distinct areas where accounting and business scholars may focus to advance the field further and contribute to achieving the SDGs agenda

The dilemma of internal audit function adaptation: The impact of ERP and corporate governance pressures

© Emerald Group Publishing Limited. Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide a conceptual framework that helps to investigate how the internal audit function (IAF) responds to both the introduction of the control logic of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, and corporate governance’s (CG) institutional pressures. Furthermore, the paper aims to articulate the concurrence between the external pressures of CG and internal control logic of ERP systems. Design/methodology/approach: The paper presents a review of the normative literature pertaining to the increase in significance of CG in the light of the worldwide economic crisis. The paper highlights a literature gap related to the lack of studies focusing on the impact of ERP systems implementation on the IAF practices. Findings: The authors articulate institutional theory to formulate a conceptual framework that explains the reciprocal interplay between the macro external governance pressures, micro internal institutional logics inscribed in the ERP systems and their effect on IAF practices and structure within organisations. Research limitations/implications: The paper is conceptual in nature and therefore the proposed framework will be subsequently validated using a qualitative research approach in future research. Practical implications: The conceptual framework would offer the internal auditors some strategies for enabling adaptation to the different internal and external pressures. Also the paper provides a platform for research community to investigate the influence of CG and ERP systems implementation on IAF adaptation. Originality/value: The paper provides a clearer articulation of the various constructs that affect the IAF, which has gained great attention for assuring good CG

Mapping of Internal Audit Research: A Post-Enron Structured Literature Review

Purpose — This paper reviews the field of internal auditing (IA) post-Enron to develop insights into how IA research has developed, offer a critique of the research to date and identify ways that future research can help to advance IA. Design/methodology/approach — A structured literature review (SLR) was used to analyse 471 papers from 64 journals published between 2005 and 2018 based on a number of criteria; namely, author, journal type, journal location, year, theme, theory, nature of research, research setting, regional focus, method and citations. Findings — The IA literature has not significantly contributed to knowledge of the internal audit function (IAF), and we still know relatively little about the factors that contribute to making the impact of IA practice effective and measurable. The IA literature is US dominated (authors and journals), focused on the American context (publicly listed companies), reliant on positivist analyses and largely makes no explicit reference to theory. Central regions (emerging economies) and key organisational settings (private SMEs and not-for-profit organisations) are largely absent in prior IA research. This paper evaluates and identifies avenues through which future research can help to advance IA in order to address emerging challenges in the field. Originality/value — This is the first comprehensive review to analyse IA research in the postEnron period (2005–2018). The findings are relevant to researchers who are looking for appropriate research outlets and emerging scholars who wish to identify their own research directions. Keywords — Internal audit, internal audit function, structured literature review, Enron Paper type — Literature revie

Corporate reporting on the Sustainable Development Goals: A structured literature review and research agenda

Purpose The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) framework emerged as a guidepost for the transition to sustainable development. To achieve this transition, companies are encouraged to integrate these goals into their business strategies, processes and corporate reporting cycle. The purpose of this paper is to review and critique the corporate SDGs reporting literature, develop insights into the state of this research field and identify a future research agenda. Design/methodology/approach Using a structured literature review (SLR) methodology, the paper reviews 65 empirical papers published in this field to identify how the current research is developing, offers a critique and identifies future research avenues to advance this field. Findings Corporate SDGs reporting is developing as a research area of great importance. The findings reveal that current SDGs reporting literature lacks theorisation, overly focusses on publicly listed companies and succinctly describes organisations’ engagement with the SDGs as superficial. Surprisingly, regions such as North America, the UK and other emerging economies have received less attention from scholars. Further, only a few authors have specialised in this field, and there currently exists low levels of international collaborations among authors as well as practitioners. Research limitations/implications The paper provides a novel contribution to the emerging field of corporate SDGs reporting. The key theoretical implications from this study’s SLR include the need for more interventionist research. Although there is an increasing number of accounting scholars developing research within this field, the prevailing research is concentrated on corporate SDGs engagement, drivers of SDGs reporting and scope of SDGs reporting. Furthermore, the scientific discourse remains largely under-theorised with positivist framings primarily focussed on the “what” questions. Thus, a modification to the current approaches and research methods is necessary to advance this field further. Practical implications The study provides practitioners with valuable insights into the current state of corporate reporting on the SDGs. To achieve more substantive engagement and reporting, a deeper understanding of the factors that influence corporate behaviour and disclosure practices is necessary. In particular, the study identifies new opportunities for practitioners to enhance the value relevance of corporate SDGs reporting. Originality/value The paper offers a comprehensive structured review of the empirical papers published on corporate SDGs reporting. It contributes to deepening this nascent research field by identifying five distinct areas where accounting and business scholars may focus to advance the field further and contribute to achieving the SDGs agenda

Enterprise resource planning, corporate governance and internal auditing:An institutional perspective

This book investigates how corporate governance is directing the internal audit function (IAF) adaptation as a response to enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. To date, there is insufficient knowledge about the adaptations of the IAF, which are required if it is to maintain its essential role as a governance mechanism. This book extends the reader’s knowledge by exploring and theorising the adaptation of the IAF after ERP introduction and points towards future trends. Adopting an institutional approach, it analyses how the IAF responds to the external governance pressures and the internal pressures of the control logic following the introduction of an ERP system. Featuring data from two listed companies in the food and beverage sector and two large banks operating in Egypt, this volume will be of interest to researchers and academics in the field of financing and ERP systems in particular