| This doctoral thesis examines how management accounting and control systems (MACS) change to support the process of institutionalization of sustainable business campuses in Quebec. This examination requires not only investigate the role of management accounting and control systems during the process of institutionalization of sustainable campuses but also study the process of change of MACS as well. Previous studies in management accounting and control have examined the role of environmental and social management accounting in creating organizational change; however the examination of how MACS change in response to environmental and social concerns is still underdeveloped in this literature. Moreover, prior studies on MACS change under institutional theory have not been fully successful in either explaining how new practices become institutionalized or how non-isomorphic changes occur, particularly when those changes are the result of several interactions and negotiations between diverse stakeholders. In order to bridge those gaps, we study both change processes through the institutional entrepreneurship lens of institutional theory, being our focus the process of theorization, in which institutional entrepreneurs will not only seek to precipitate the deinstitutionalization of traditional business campus mindsets but also to generate and formalize new structural arrangements, such as sustainable business campuses and eco-control systems.;A longitudinal case study covering three large business schools located in Montreal was conducted to get an understanding of the institutional change process. Our results show that these schools are currently experiencing the preinstitutionalization stage of the institutional change process, although change agents have not been able to disrupt business school mindsets, and thus they can't be considered as institutional entrepreneurs. However, these change agents have been able to disseminate and specify the problem, and justify possible solutions through lobbying, networking, negotiation and communication. One of those solutions is the development of eco-control systems, which we also found that are currently experiencing the pre-institutionalization stage. However, there are some eco-control systems still decoupled from traditional management control systems, such as the case of performance measurements. Interestingly, we notice that in certain cases eco-control systems have not only supported the institutional change process but also triggered it. Indeed, we found that beyond the traditional roles of MACS (belief, boundary, diagnostic, and interactive roles), eco-control systems can be also utilized for strategic and/or operational roles with the aim of maintaining or altering the behaviour of internal and external stakeholders. Specifically, we distinguish four types of eco-control systems related to organizational change process: triggering, progressing, conforming, and accurate systems.;The main contributions of this thesis are threefold. First of all, we propose a conceptual framework to study management accounting and control change that takes into consideration agency, power and interests, and that can explain the development of new MACS. Second, we develop a new taxonomy for the role of management accounting and control on organizational change. Finally, we provide additional evidence to support previous organizational studies on drivers and barriers for organizational change in higher education. Indeed, we found that top level support and collaboration among different stakeholder groups were the main drivers to deal with resistance and inertia. Moreover, top level leadership is not mandatory given that change agents can be effective even if the change process is leaded by students. The key aspect is to account for top level support and engagement. |
