Guest editorial

• Date: 17 May 2021
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/CG-05-2021-476
• Pages: 373-377
• Published date: 17 May 2021
• Subject Matter: Strategy,Corporate governance
• Author: Aymen Sajjad,Masahiro Hosoda,Hitomi Toyosaki

Guest editorial

Aymen Sajjad, Masahiro Hosoda and Hitomi Toyosaki

Revisiting the linkages between sustainability, corporate social responsibility and

management control systems

Introduction

Over the past few years, the conceptsof sustainability, corporate social responsibility (CSR)

and management control systems (MCSs) have continued to draw the attention of scholars

and practitioners alike. While a great deal of research has been conducted to explore the

separate areas of sustainability, CSR and MCSs, very few concerted research efforts have

been made to systematicallyintegrate these concepts (Gond et al., 2012;Luegand Radlach,

2016).

This special issue of corporate governance: The International Journalof Business in Society

discusses the design and use of MCSs and/or sustainability control systems (SCSs). MCSs

are essential for fostering sustainability and CSR implementation. However, the traditional

accounting-based MCSs offer limited opportunity to address sustainability and CSR issues

including the non-f‌inancial –social and environmental interests of wide-ranging stakeholder

groups (Bonacchi and Rinaldi, 2007;Burritt and Schaltegger, 2010;Herzig et al.,2012).

Accordingly,there is a growing need to understand the design and useof MCSs and/or SCSs

to foster the implementation of sustainability and CSR strategies (Ghosh et al.,2019;Laguir

et al.,2019;Wijethilakeand Upadhaya, 2020). Research on the design of control systems for

sustainability and CSR has been demanded to reveal the degree of integration of

sustainability and business strategy (Battaglia et al.,2016;George et al.,2016;Gond et al.,

2012). The management control package (Malmi and Brown, 2008;Simons, 1995)

perspective is adopted to systematically explore what different MCSs and/or SCSs

conf‌igurations are observable in practice and informed by different strategic orientations

(Crutzen et al., 2017;Gond et al.,2012). Similarly, studies related to the use of MCSs for

sustainability and CSR have been conducted to identify how companies use MCSs and/or

SCSs in their sustainabilityand CSR practices (Crutzen et al.,2017;Durden,2008;Riccaboni

and Leone, 2010). Some scholars have argued that formal and informal controls need to

reinforce one another to promote sustainability and CSR objectives internally, while others

discuss the primacyof informal controls negating the need forformal controls (Crutzen, 2017;

Ghosh et al.,2019). Control congruity or primacy is based on research undertaken on a

limited number of organizations(Ghosh et al.,2019).

Research on the role of control systems forstrategy formulation is also scarce. For example,

the levers of control framework by Simons (1995) has been applied to examine the role of

controls in developing emergingstrategies (Laguir et al.,2019). In addition, informal controls

can raise awareness of sustainability and CSR within organizations and support strategy

formulation (Ghosh et al.,2019). Thus, it is necessary to discuss how formal interactive

controls and informal controls can benef‌it companies in formulating sustainability and CSR

strategies (Ghoshet al.,2019).

Moreover, we knowlittle about the optimal role of different typesof controls that exist in varied

contexts and purposes. There are several research topics that have room for further

discussion such as combinations of MCSs and corporate reporting (e.g. sustainability

reporting and integrated reporting) (de Villiers et al.,2016;Dimes and de Villiers, 2020),

Aymen Sajjad is based at

the School of management,

Massey University,

Auckland, New Zealand.

Masahiro Hosoda is based

at the College of Business,

Rikkyo University, Tokyo,

Japan. Hitomi Toyosaki is

based at the School of

Business Administration,

Meiji University, Tokyo,

Japan.

DOI 10.1108/CG-05-2021-476 VOL. 21 NO. 3 2021, pp. 373-377, ©Emerald Publishing Limited, ISSN 1472-0701 jCORPORATE GOVERNANCE jPAGE 373