Sustainability Management Accounting in Urban Development: A Case Study of an Egyptian State-Owned Enterprise

Loai Ali Zeenalabden Ali Alsaid () and Jean Claude Mutiganda ()
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Loai Ali Zeenalabden Ali Alsaid: Department of Accounting, Faculty of Commerce, Beni-Suef University, Beni-Suef P.O. Box 6251, Egypt
Jean Claude Mutiganda: Department of Business and Economic Studies, Faculty of Education and Business Studies, University of Gävle, 801 76 Gävle, Sweden

Sustainability, 2024, vol. 16, issue 18, 1-25

Abstract: The public sector literature on sustainability management accounting (SMA) has grown significantly in recent years, with numerous theoretical and empirical studies examining the purported link between management accounting and corporate sustainability within organisations. However, despite this surge, prior studies have largely confined their analytical scope to traditional SMA issues, such as corporate social, environmental, and governance responsibilities. Their analyses have predominantly concentrated on largely investigated elements such as situational linkages, transformational dynamics, agency issues, resistance, and conflicts. This study aims to address these limitations by examining corporate SMA systems within the burgeoning field of urban development. It utilises institutional theory and a case study from Egypt, a developing country, to explore how urban development could impact adopting a corporate SMA system in politically sensitive state-owned enterprises (SOEs). Contrary to existing literature, the findings indicate that urban development has created financial pressures for national governments, which have used these as a political instrument to implement a corporate SMA system within related SOEs. Additionally, the findings highlight the significant role of management accountants as central figures in integrating and standardising a corporate SMA system into the daily practices of current executives through advanced enterprise resource planning (ERP) technology. Moreover, as a development of institutional theory, the findings demonstrate the influence of corporate SMA reports on the decision-making processes of national governments in the context of urban development.

Keywords: urban development; corporate sustainability management accounting; national government; state-owned enterprises; institutional theory; Egypt (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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