Dorothea Greiling

Johannes Kepler University Linz | JKU · Institute for Management Accounting

The climate crisis requires the systematic integration of environmental matters into the management practices of companies across all sectors. The 2022 Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) has created a need in many large social service and healthcare non-profits (SSHC–NPOs) within the European Union to extend the integration of envi...

The construction industry's activities have significant effects on nature, society, and economic development. These effects and the accompanied societal expectations have encouraged companies to deal with and report on their contributions to sustainable development (SD). While the state of the literature on sustainability reporting (SR) has already...

Purpose Companies must no longer just report on corporate sustainability (CS) performance but also demonstrate that they are aligning their strategies with sustainability. However, suitable management control systems (MCS) are required to implement a sustainability strategy. Thereby, sustainability reporting (SR) can also be employed for control pu...

Purpose While in the past companies have voluntarily disclosed information beyond the financial bottom line, there is now a trend toward mandatory reporting in many countries. With the adoption of Directive 2014/95/EU, the European Union has taken a decisive step in this direction. However, research on the effects of these obligations is still at a...

Der Beitrag beschäftigt sich mit der Berichterstattung über die Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) am Beispiel deutscher und österreichischer kommunaler Wasserversorger. Wenngleich die Relevanz der SDG-Berichterstattung für öffentliche Unternehmen gestiegen ist, gibt es kaum Studien zu deren Umsetzung durch Wasserversorger. Um erste Einblicke in...

Zu den zentralen Innovationen im Bereich der Rechenschaftslegung zählte in den vergangenen Jahrzehnten die Nachhaltigkeitsberichterstattung (NHB). Vor allem börsennotierte Unternehmen haben damit begonnen, aus Reputations- und Legitimationsgesichtspunkten ihre finanzielle Berichterstattung mit Informationen über ihre soziale und ökologische Perform...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore how Austrian public universities (APUs) respond to the challenge of maintaining academic freedom while complying with legal requirements and enhancing competitiveness by using Management Control Systems (MCSs). Specifically, it examines how APUs respond to the co-presence of academic, government and b...

Climate change has become one of the dominant themes of our time, and the way how companies respond to it may have major implications for their success in the future. This paper aims to better understand the response of companies in a highly exposed sector, i.e. the gas sector, to institutional pressures of climate change. To do so, it adopts a qua...

Health information plays a significant role in the health behavior of individuals. Word-of-mouth (WOM) is essential in this context. In recent years, new forms of online communication have greatly expanded the possibilities for seeking information and, in consequence, significantly changed communication behavior. Similarly, the doctor-patient relat...

Public owned enterprises (POEs) are important to the daily lives of citizens. As they provide employment as well as services of general economic interest. Nevertheless, researchers also indicate negative side effects like undermining political control, accountability or public ethics. Fully public or partly privatized POEs have to balance the inter...

Der Beitrag widmet sich der Nachhaltigkeitsberichterstattungspraxis deutscher kommunaler Wasserversorgungsunternehmen. Dies ist, auch international betrachtet, noch ein sehr junges Forschungsfeld. Mittels einer Dokumentenanalyse von 63 Berichten wurde die Berichterstattungspraxis über die wesentlichen Aspekte analysiert. Um den kommenden regulatori...

Purpose Literature shows that a strong link between sustainability control systems and sustainability management (SM) fosters sustainability development (SD) and compliance with regulatory requirements and stakeholder expectations. Research on the integration of SM and its control mechanisms in corporate business remains scarce. This study aims to...

Electric utilities are in an environmental sensitive industry, exploiting natural resources and contributing to climate change issues. The focus of critical stakeholders on sustainability agendas and management approaches and the increasing tight sector-regulations pressure electric utilities to act and distribute sustainability reports declaring t...

While there is extensive knowledge on management control systems (MCS) and a large body of literature focusing on sustainability reporting (SR), studies investigating the interplay of SR and MCS are still at an early stage, although a broad consensus exists that for a good progress towards corporate sustainability interlinking of reporting and cont...

Purpose Electric utility companies (EUC) are expected to play a key role toward implementing ambitious climate change aims being under critical scrutiny by regulators and stakeholders. However, EUC provide an under-researched field regarding sustainability reporting with the focus on economic, social and ecological concerns. This paper aims to gain...

The chapter provides an insight into stakeholder engagement (SE) processes of universities’ Sustainability Reports (SRs) and analyses the extent to which universities comply with the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) G4 Guidelines.

Purpose Materiality as an emerging trend aims to make sustainability reports (SR) more relevant for stakeholders. This paper aims to investigate whether the reporting practice of electric utility companies (EUC) is in compliance with the materiality principle of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) when disclosing SR. Design/methodology/approach...

(Online first; link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/20479700.2019.1681154 ) Abstract: Increasingly, patients expect to be able to co-determine their medical providers and treatments. Such a participative role requires access to comprehensible information, which might often be gained through recommendations. Current research analyze recomm...

Zu den zentralen Innovationen im Bereich der Rechenschaftslegung zählte in den vergangenen Jahrzehnten die Nachhaltigkeitsberichterstattung (NHB). Vor allem börsennotierte Unternehmen haben damit begonnen, aus Reputations- und Legitimationsgesichtspunkten ihre finanzielle Berichterstattung mit Informationen über ihre soziale und ökologische Perform...

Purpose Materiality, as a content-selection principle, is an emerging trend in sustainability reporting for making sustainability reports (SRs) more relevant for stakeholders. The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether materiality matters in the reporting practice of universities which have adopted the Global Reporting Initiative G4 Guidel...

Als maßgebliche Innovation der vergangenen Jahre im Rechnungswesen gilt die Entwicklung von Rechnungslegungsstandards für die Nachhaltigkeitsberichterstattung (NHB). Den vielfältigen Ansätzen zur NHB liegt die Idee zugrunde, dass zusätzlich zur finanziellen Berichterstattung auch über die ökologische und soziale Performance von Unternehmen Rechensc...

The procurement of blood is an essential challenge of today's health care. Current studies emphasize the influence of word-of-mouth (WOM) on health care behavior, including blood donation. Still, there exists no study which systematically investigates how WOM affects the behavior of blood donors. Therefore, this paper aims to contribute to this lac...

It is paradoxical that public economics is actually extremely important as a public service but has been marginalised to a great extent in the field of economics and its academic circles presumably because it is regarded as inefficient in comparison to market solutions. Instead of focusing on ideological, a priori stereotypes, this multidisciplinar...

Der Energieversorgungssektor zählt seit vielen Jahren unter Effizienz- und Umweltgesichtspunkten zu den reputationssensiblen Branchen. Ein, in den vergangenen Jahren insbesondere bei Großunternehmen, an Bedeutung gewinnendes Instrument zur Rechenschaftslegung über finanzielle, ökologische und soziale Belange ist die Nachhaltigkeitsberichterstattung...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the status quo of Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)-based sustainable public value (SPV) reporting by electric utilities. Furthermore, the study attempts to find out whether a stock exchange listing and/or a public ownership are positively associated with electric utilities’ reporting regarding t...

Purpose A growing amount of German and Austrian utilities create own Facebook accounts to communicate with their stakeholders. Whereas existing studies describe how utility companies are currently using Facebook, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, there exists no study which focuses on the actual expectations of Facebook users. Nevertheless, a...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to encourage research implicating public sector accounting practitioners. It overviews articles in the AAAJ Forum arising from the Comparative International Governmental Accounting Research (CIGAR) Network conference in 2015 in which practitioners’ doings were themes across numerous papers. The paper’s central o...

Considering that the members of the International Non-Governmental Organizations (INGO) Accountability Charter played a prominent role in initiating the first sector supplement of the Global Reporting Initiative for non-governmental organizations (NGO), the purpose of the paper is to investigate their sustainability reporting (SR) practices in orde...

Universities face a range of globalization challenges that create new environmental conditions. This situation serves as a motivation to take a closer look at their mix between public and private income sources. With a specific focus on the field of teaching we address three main aspects: the ties between the type of good of the university services...

Nonprofit-Organisationen (NPO) sind mit erhöhtem Rechtfertigungsdruck konfrontiert und vermehrt gefordert, ihre organisationale Leistungsfähigkeit im Sinne von Effizienz sowie Effektivität und ein Handeln im Einklang mit diversen gesellschaftlichen Erwartungen zu dokumentieren. Dadurch sollen Vertrauenswürdigkeit signalisiert, ihr Handeln legitimie...

In diesem Band werden die zahlreichen Fragestellungen rund um den Themenkomplex „Nachhaltigkeit in Nonprofit-Organisationen“ des 12. Internationalen NPO-Forschungscolloquiums zusammengeführt. Das Thema wird in zwei Keynotes und mehr als 46 wissenschaftlichen Vorträgen in seinen verschiedenen Facetten behandelt. Wie schon bei den bisherigen, seit 19...

This volume reflects on the consequences of the increasingly globalized nature of our world for public sector management. Globalization has triggered rapid growth in trade, global financial transactions and cross-country ownership of economic assets. The implications of these multifaceted processes for the welfare of today’s and tomorrow’s societie...

Im Rahmen ihrer Gewährleistungsverantwortung beauftragt die öffentliche Hand häufig private Nonprofit-Organisationen mit der Erstellung von (z. B. sozialen) Leistungen. Diese Austauschbeziehungen sind heute vielfach durch Leistungsverträge geregelt, welche neben Leistungs- und Qualitätsspezifikationen meist auch Rechenschafts- und Performance Measu...

Non-profit organizations (NPOs) are increasingly obliged to demonstrate performance in terms of efficiency and effectiveness. The introduction of performance measurement systems is advocated not only to promote external accountability but also for internal coordination purposes. However, studies concentrating on the use of performance measuremen...

Zeitschrift für öffentliche und gemeinwirtschaftliche Unternehmen, Beiheft Nr. 46, S. 117-140.

Since the liberalization of markets for public service provision within the nineties, the pressure on public sector entities to demonstrate their performance in financial and nonfinancial terms has increased. Compared to the private sector accountability expectations and obligations are higher for public enterprises due to public ownership and the...

New Public Management (NPM) and follow-up reforms have extended the external accountability duties of nonprofit organizations (NPOs). They are increasingly obliged to demonstrate performance in terms of efficiency and effectiveness and to introduce performance measurement systems (PM systems) for this purpose. This is also the case in Austria, a co...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate to what extent public sector entities in Austria, Germany and Switzerland apply sustainability reporting (SR) guidelines in line with the global reporting initiative (GRI) to respond to societal pressure. It further assesses the kind of data reported in order to illuminate whether well-balanced...

Since the liberalisation of markets during the 1990s, the pressure on public sector entities to demonstrate their performance in financial and non-financial terms has increased. Compared to the private sector, accountability expectations and obligations are higher for public enterprises due to public ownership and objectives associated with the pub...

In mehreren Etappen vollzieht sich im Nonprofit-Sektor ein Wandel von einer trust-me zu einer show-me Kultur. Zunächst sahen sich vor allem Dienstleistungs- NPOs mit Anforderungen an eine Qualitätsdokumentation konfrontiert, bevor dann die (verbesserungsbedürftige) Transparenz von Eigen- und Fremdleistungs- NPOs in den Fokus rückte. Inhaltlich sind...

Vom Erbsenzähler zum Business Partner? In den vergangenen Jahrzehnten unterlagen die Rollenbilder des Controller-Berufes einem weitreichenden Wandel. Eine Stellenanzeigenanalyse, die am deutschsprachigen Arbeitsmarkt durchgeführt wurde, soll klären, ob und wie sich die Anforderungen und Stellenprofile in Ausschreibungen verändert haben.Albert Anton...

Boards of nongovernmental development organizations (NGDOs) are facing difficult times: They find themselves caught between their goal to achieve professionalism and their obligation towards their members and beneficiaries. This chapter presents empirical results based on a qualitative research design. The study explores the governance understandin...

Over the past two decades public accountability has become an icon in political, managerial, and administrative discourse and the object of much scholarly analysis across a broad range of social and administrative sciences. This Handbook provides a state of the art overview of recent scholarship on public accountability. It collects, consolidates,...

Greater use of information and communications technology and e-government can increase governmental transparency. This, in turn, may invite citizen participation, foster e-governance, and facilitate e-democracy. However, beyond a certain point, more government openness may be dysfunctional if it reduces operational capacity. This article claims tha...

Despite substantial expansion of the amount and scope of public accountability, government responsiveness, efficiency, and effectiveness have not significantly improved. Such a development may emerge as agencies move from accountability reporting with a short-term focus to dynamic accountability that examines long-run performance. Dynamic accountab...

Im vergangenen Jahrzehnt fand nicht nur eine Ausweitung der bürgerbezogenen Rechenschaftslegung, sondern auch der Formen des bürgerschaftlichen Engagements statt. Je nach Standpunkt werden beide Instrumente als Ansatz gesehen, um verloren gegangenes Bürgervertrauen wieder zu gewinnen. Vor diesem Hintergrund untersucht der vorliegende Beitrag versch...

Under New Public Management (NPM) we have seen an expansion of public accountability despite the fact that it is an ambiguous, complex, elusive, fragmented and heterogeneous concept. Public management has not only resulted in bureaucratic accountability being augmented by managerial accountability but also in greater awareness of political accounta...

With global challenges like climate change and, of course, the crisis of capital markets in the recent past stakeholder oriented management receives enhanced attention whereas shareholder value management is increasingly criticized for its undesirable external effects on stakeholders other than owners. Regardless of whether these criticisms are wel...

Während der erwerbswirtschaftliche Bereich teilweise den Eindruck vermittelt als sei gesellschaftliche Verantwortung im Allgemeinen und CSR im Besonderen ein wieder- oder neu entdecktes Thema, gelten kommunale Unternehmen traditionell als sachzieldominierte Unternehmen, die im Sinne der Instrumentalthese von Theo Thiemeyer, Instrumente ihrer Träger...

A predicted effect of demographic change is that there will be most likely a shortage of high skilled workers in the European labour market. Against this background the article presents five distinct approaches a firm can take towards personnel development and uses them for investigating the likeliness that companies will pay for the necessary huma...

Verbände als bedarfswirtschaftliche Betriebe, die sich in ihrer Arbeit idealtypisch dem Dienstprinzip verpflichtet fühlen, nach haushaltswirtschaftlichen Prinzipien geführt werden und von unbestimmten Mitgliedern getragen werden,1 sind ein fester Bestandteil unserer Gesellschaft. Als karitative, soziokulturelle, politische, religiöse und wirtschaft...

Information is a crucial factor in accountability arrangements. In all phases of the accountability process, information has to be gathered, processed and communicated. To gain deeper theory-driven insight, this paper examines, from a multi-theoretical perspective, two phenomena that may impede the exchange of information in the accountability proc...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to report on the results of an explorative empirical study among German non‐profit organisations with respect to the implementation of the balanced scorecard (implementation levels, perspectives, major challenges and obstacles, missing and used performance measures and enabling factors). Design/methodology/appr...

Nicht zuletzt durch den Klimawandel zeichnet sich ein Bewusstseinswandel ab, der in Richtung eines Bedeutungszuwachses der Berücksichtigung des Nachhaltigkeitsgedankens in der unternehmerischen Praxis geht. Markt-oder ressourcenorientierte Sustainability-Strategien haben ebenso Hochkonjunktur wie Ansätze des Social und Environmental Accounting. Zu...

Die wissenschaftliche Auseinandersetzung mit privaten Nonprofit-Organisationen (NPOs) ist gleichermaßen alt und neu. Teilbereiche wie Genossenschaften, Verbände, Vereine, Stiftungen bilden schon lange Gegenstände eines wissenschaftlichen Diskurses. Unter dem Etikett Nonprofit-Forschung firmieren die Forschungsbemühungen jedoch erst seit Anfang der...

Bei den im zweiten Kapitel vorgestellten Gestaltungsvorschlägen für ein Performance Measurement in NPOs fällt auf, dass zwar eine Reihe von Theorien Erwähnung finden, aber keiner der Vorschläge vor einem theoretischen Bezugsrahmen analysiert wird. Als theoretischen Hintergrund finden allenfalls der Stakeholder-Ansatz und die Principal Agent-Theorie...

Gegenstand der Arbeit bildet eine intensive Auseinandersetzung mit dem Performance Measurement im NPO-Kontext. Dazu wurden in der Problemstellung folgende Forschungsfragen formuliert: • Was versteht man unter Performance Measurement und welche instrumentellen Funktionen werden Performance Measurement-Systemen zugeschrieben? • Wie nutzen private NPO...

Viele private Nonprofit-Organisationen stehen heute mehr denn je unter dem Druck, ihre Ressourcen effizient und effektiv einzusetzen. Außerdem ist eine öffentlichkeitswirksame Darstellung der Leistungsfähigkeit notwendig. In diesem Kontext gewinnt das Performance Measurement als Berichterstattungs- und Steuerungsinstrument für private Nonprofit-Org...

Performance management as a steering instrument is slowly gaining momentum in non-profit organizations. Taking the mixed experience with performance management in the public and non-profit sector into account, the article looks into the potential of trust as a soft factor which could lead to more effective performance management in the non-profit s...