IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/crpeac/v42y2017icp36-58.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

From écobilan to LCA: The elite’s institutional work in the creation of an environmental management accounting tool

Author

Listed:
  • Gibassier, Delphine

Abstract

I explore the institutionalization process of an environmental management accounting tool in France. Based on the concept of institutional work, I analyze the role of the French elite in institutionalizing life cycle assessment in France and its consequences. Who are the most influential institutional agents in the construction of environmental management accounting innovations? What work is involved in the creation of environmental management accounting innovations? The study follows the tool historically from the 1990s to 2012, looking at the different phases of institutionalization. This paper not only sheds light on the historical factors leading to an environmental management accounting innovation, but also and more specifically identifies which actors are involved in shaping new accounting techniques and what strategies are advanced for their adoption.

Suggested Citation

  • Gibassier, Delphine, 2017. "From écobilan to LCA: The elite’s institutional work in the creation of an environmental management accounting tool," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 36-58.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:crpeac:v:42:y:2017:i:c:p:36-58
    DOI: 10.1016/j.cpa.2016.03.003
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1045235416300090
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.cpa.2016.03.003?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nur Haiza Muhammad Zawawi & Zahirul Hoque, 2010. "Research in management accounting innovations," Qualitative Research in Accounting & Management, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 7(4), pages 505-568, November.
    2. Ezzamel, M. & Hyndman, N. & Johnsen, A. & Lapsley, I., 2014. "Reforming central government: An evaluation of an accounting innovation," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 25(4), pages 409-422.
    3. repec:dau:papers:123456789/10730 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Napier, Christopher J., 2006. "Accounts of change: 30 years of historical accounting research," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 31(4-5), pages 445-507.
    5. Colwyn Jones, T. & Dugdale, David, 2002. "The ABC bandwagon and the juggernaut of modernity," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 27(1-2), pages 121-163.
    6. Simon Alcouffe & Nicolas Berland & Yves Levant, 2003. "Les facteurs de diffusion des innovations managériales en comptabilité et contrôle de gestion : une étude comparative," ACCRA, Association francophone de comptabilité, vol. 9(3), pages 7-26.
    7. Howard Mellett & Neil Marriott & Louise Macniven, 2009. "Diffusion of an Accounting Innovation: Fixed Asset Accounting in the NHS in Wales," European Accounting Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(4), pages 745-764.
    8. Anne-Laure Farjaudon & Jérémy Morales, 2013. "In search of consensus: The role of accounting in the definition and reproduction of dominant interests," Post-Print hal-01630501, HAL.
    9. Ball, Amanda & Craig, Russell, 2010. "Using neo-institutionalism to advance social and environmental accounting," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 21(4), pages 283-293.
    10. Fligstein, Neil, 2001. "Social Skill and the Theory of Fields," Center for Culture, Organizations and Politics, Working Paper Series qt26m187b1, Center for Culture, Organizations and Politics of theInstitute for Research on Labor and Employment, UC Berkeley.
    11. Anne-Laure Farjaudon & Jérémy Morales, 2013. "In Search of Consensus: The Role of Accounting in the Definition and Reproduction of Dominant Interests," Post-Print halshs-00864761, HAL.
    12. Farjaudon, Anne-Laure & Morales, Jérémy, 2013. "In search of consensus: The role of accounting in the definition and reproduction of dominant interests," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 154-171.
    13. Nicolas Berland, 1997. "La naissance du contrôle budgétaire en France (1930-1960) : rôle des consultants, apprentissage organisationnel et jeu des acteurs chez Pechiney et Saint-Gobain," Comptabilité - Contrôle - Audit, Association francophone de comptabilité, vol. 3(2), pages 5-22.
    14. Ramirez, Carlos, 2001. "Understanding social closure in its cultural context: accounting practitioners in France (1920-1939)," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 26(4-5), pages 391-418.
    15. Miller, Peter, 1991. "Accounting innovation beyond the enterprise: Problematizing investment decisions and programming economic growth in the U.K. in the 1960s," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 16(8), pages 733-762.
    16. Malmi, Teemu, 1999. "Activity-based costing diffusion across organizations: an exploratory empirical analysis of Finnish firms," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 24(8), pages 649-672, November.
    17. N. Rowbottom & J. Locke, 2016. "The emergence of >IR>," Accounting and Business Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(1), pages 83-115, January.
    18. Stewart Clegg & David Courpasson & Nelson Phillips, 2006. "Power and organizations," Post-Print hal-02298067, HAL.
    19. Armstrong, Peter, 1985. "Changing management control strategies: The role of competition between accountancy and other organisational professions," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 10(2), pages 129-148, April.
    20. Miller, Peter & Hopper, Trevor & Laughlin, Richard, 1991. "The new accounting history: An introduction," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 16(5-6), pages 395-403.
    21. repec:dau:papers:123456789/12252 is not listed on IDEAS
    22. Burchell, Stuart & Clubb, Colin & Hopwood, Anthony & Hughes, John & Nahapiet, Janine, 1980. "The roles of accounting in organizations and society," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 5(1), pages 5-27, January.
    23. Oakes, Leslie. S. & Miranti, Paul. Jr, 1996. "Louis D. Brandeis and standard cost accounting: A study of the construction of historical agency," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 21(6), pages 569-586, August.
    24. Yves Levant & Simon Alcouffe & Nicolas Berland, 2008. "Actor-networks and the diffusion of management accounting innovations : a comparative study," Post-Print hal-01682216, HAL.
    25. Dahl, Robert A., 1958. "A Critique of the Ruling Elite Model," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 52(2), pages 463-469, June.
    26. Nicolas Berland, 1997. "La naissance du contrôle budgétaire en France (1930-1960) : rôle des consultants, apprentissage organisationnel et jeu des acteurs chez Pechiney et Saint-Gobain," Post-Print hal-01667208, HAL.
    27. Marriott, Lisa, 2010. "Power and ideas: The development of retirement savings taxation in Australasia," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 21(7), pages 597-610.
    28. Cooper, Christine & Coulson, Andrea & Taylor, Phil, 2011. "Accounting for human rights: Doxic health and safety practices – The accounting lesson from ICL," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 22(8), pages 738-758.
    29. Kilfoyle, Eksa & Richardson, Alan J., 2011. "Agency and structure in budgeting: Thesis, antithesis and synthesis," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 183-199.
    30. Robert J. David & Wesley D. Sine & Heather A. Haveman, 2013. "Seizing Opportunity in Emerging Fields: How Institutional Entrepreneurs Legitimated the Professional Form of Management Consulting," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 24(2), pages 356-377, April.
    31. Simon Alcouffe & Nicolas Berland & Yves Levant, 2003. "Les facteurs de diffusion des innovations managériales en comptabilité et contrôle de gestion : une étude comparative," Comptabilité - Contrôle - Audit, Association francophone de comptabilité, vol. 9(3), pages 7-26.
    32. Qu, Sandy Q. & Cooper, David J., 2011. "The role of inscriptions in producing a balanced scorecard," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 36(6), pages 344-362.
    33. repec:dau:papers:123456789/1094 is not listed on IDEAS
    34. Ingmar Gehrke & Philippe Zarlowski, 2003. "La diffusion de la valeur actionnariale en France : une lecture néo-institutionnaliste," Comptabilité - Contrôle - Audit, Association francophone de comptabilité, vol. 9(3), pages 189-205.
    35. Berland, Nicolas & Chiapello, Eve, 2009. "Criticisms of capitalism, budgeting and the double enrolment: Budgetary control rhetoric and social reform in France in the 1930s and 1950s," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 28-57, January.
    36. Julie Battilana & Bernard Leca & Eva Boxenbaum, 2009. "How actors change institutions : Towards a theory of institutional entrepreneurship," Post-Print hal-00576509, HAL.
    37. Ingmar Gehrke & Philippe Zarlowski, 2003. "La diffusion de la valeur actionnariale en France : une lecture néo-institutionnaliste," ACCRA, Association francophone de comptabilité, vol. 9(3), pages 189-205.
    38. Miller, Peter & Napier, Christopher, 1993. "Genealogies of calculation," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 18(7-8), pages 631-647.
    39. Miller, Peter & O'Leary, Ted, 1990. "Making accountancy practical," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 15(5), pages 479-498.
    40. repec:dau:papers:123456789/398 is not listed on IDEAS
    41. Dror Etzion & Fabrizio Ferraro, 2010. "The Role of Analogy in the Institutionalization of Sustainability Reporting," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 21(5), pages 1092-1107, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Behnam Hosseini Dastjerdi & Vladimir Strezov & Ravinder Kumar & Masud Behnia, 2021. "Economic Feasibility and Sustainability Assessment of Residual Municipal Solid Waste Management Scenarios in NSW, Australia," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(16), pages 1-12, August.
    2. Sebastian D. Becker & Martin Messner & Utz Schäffer, 2020. "The Interplay of Core and Peripheral Actors in the Trajectory of an Accounting Innovation: Insights from beyond Budgeting," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 37(4), pages 2224-2256, December.
    3. Junming Zhu, 2020. "Suggested use? On evidence‐based decision‐making in industrial ecology and beyond," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 24(5), pages 943-950, October.
    4. Ismail N.B. & Sébastien Alcouffe & Galy N & Ceulemans K, 2020. "The impact of international sustainability initiatives on Life Cycle Assessment voluntary disclosures: The case of France’s CAC40 listed companies," Post-Print hal-03082800, HAL.
    5. Robson, Keith & Ezzamel, Mahmoud, 2023. "The cultural fields of accounting practices: Institutionalization and accounting changes beyond the organization," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 104(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Napier, Christopher J., 2006. "Accounts of change: 30 years of historical accounting research," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 31(4-5), pages 445-507.
    2. Spence, Crawford, 2010. "Accounting for the dissolution of a nation state: Scotland and the Treaty of Union," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 377-392, April.
    3. Sebastian D. Becker & Martin Messner & Utz Schäffer, 2020. "The Interplay of Core and Peripheral Actors in the Trajectory of an Accounting Innovation: Insights from beyond Budgeting," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 37(4), pages 2224-2256, December.
    4. Bala Balachandran, 2007. "Imperialismo occidental y contabilidad en Oriente: La historia del Instituto de contadores de gestión autorizados de Sri Lanka," Revista Facultad de Ciencias Económicas, Universidad Militar Nueva Granada, December.
    5. Simon Alcouffe & Jonathan Maurice & Nadine Galy & Loïc Gate, 2019. "Is the limited diffusion of management accounting innovations really a paradox? A meta-analysis of the relationship between product diversity and the adoption of Activity-Based Costing [La faible d," Post-Print hal-02124677, HAL.
    6. Carnegie, Garry D. & McBride, Karen M. & Napier, Christopher J. & Parker, Lee D., 2020. "Accounting history and theorising about organisations," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 52(6).
    7. Cooper, Christine, 2015. "Entrepreneurs of the self: The development of management control since 1976," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 14-24.
    8. Radcliffe, Vaughan S., 1998. "Efficiency audit: An assembly of rationalities and programmes," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 23(4), pages 377-410, May.
    9. Morales, Jérémy & Sponem, Samuel, 2017. "You too can have a critical perspective! 25 years of Critical Perspectives on Accounting," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 149-166.
    10. Bigoni, Michele & Funnell, Warwick, 2015. "Ancestors of governmentality: Accounting and pastoral power in the 15th century," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 160-176.
    11. Lambert Jerman, 2013. "La Juste Valeur : Une Comptabilite Actuarielle Pour Les Marches ... Ou Les Comptables ?," Post-Print hal-00991877, HAL.
    12. Bay, Charlotta, 2018. "Makeover accounting: Investigating the meaning-making practices of financial accounts," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 44-54.
    13. Phillip Cobbin & Graeme Dean & Cameron Esslemont & Patrick Ferguson & Monica Keneley & Brad Potter & Brian West, 2013. "Enhancing the Accessibility of Accounting and Business Archives: The Role of Technology in Informing Research in Accounting and Business," Abacus, Accounting Foundation, University of Sydney, vol. 49(3), pages 396-422, September.
    14. Ben Khaled, Wafa & Gérard, Benoît & Farjaudon, Anne-Laure, 2022. "Analysis of the political and identity dynamics of a dominant mode of control: The case of business ethics control and its legalization," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    15. Laura Girella, 2013. "Regulating through the "Logic of Appropriateness" and the "Rhetoric of the Expert": The Role of Consultants in the Case of Intangibles Reporting in Germany," FINANCIAL REPORTING, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2013(3-4), pages 75-109.
    16. Brown, Judy & Tregidga, Helen, 2017. "Re-politicizing social and environmental accounting through Rancière: On the value of dissensus," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 1-21.
    17. Mohamed Ali Dakkam, 2018. "qui et à quoi sert la comptabilité ? Un état de l'art et quelques réflexions théoriques pour dépasser le déterminisme des différents paradigmes," Post-Print hal-01907865, HAL.
    18. Papi, Luca & Bigoni, Michele & Deidda Gagliardo, Enrico & Funnell, Warwick, 2019. "Accounting for power and resistance: The University of Ferrara under the Fascist regime in Italy," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 59-76.
    19. Vassili Joannides, 2011. "La gestion sans budget ou l'alignement de la finance sur la stratégie," Post-Print hal-00650532, HAL.
    20. Carmona, Salvador & Ezzamel, Mahmoud & Gutiérrez, Fernando, 2004. "Accounting History Research:Traditional and New Accounting History Perspectives," De Computis "Revista Española de Historia de la Contabilidad". De Computis "Spanish Journal of Accounting History"., Asociación Española de Contabilidad y Administración de Empresas (AECA). Spanish Accounting and Business Administration Association., issue 1, pages 24-53, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:crpeac:v:42:y:2017:i:c:p:36-58. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/critical-perspectives-on-accounting/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.