Accounting for sustainability: insights from the institutional logics perspective

Abstract

This chapter conceptualises aspects of accounting for sustainability using insights from the institutional logics perspective. An institutional logics theoretical lens, with its emphasis on the role of multiple and competing logics in shaping organisational behaviour and practices, offers useful pointers to critically understand some of the issues related to accounting for sustainability. To date, institutional logics theory has been used by a handful of scholars in the accounting for sustainability field, whereas in other closely-related disciplines (e.g. organization studies), there is a more mature institutional logics-led strand of research. I will draw on such extant works to introduce some key conceptual tenets of this theory and in particular, the notions of institutional logics, institutional complexity and pluralism, and the role that accounting may play in regulating the institutional logics-related dynamics. The purpose of this chapter is to illustrate this theory and to discuss how it might assist scholars to theorize and make sense of accounting for sustainability practices.