The Research On Management Accounting For Sustainable Development

Owing to rapidly-developed technology, increasingly furious global competition and changeable market, modern management of enterprises is confronted with challenges greater than ever before. The No. 1 question for any manager is how to balance the corporate reality and eco-environment. In this way, eco-environment management, as the carrier of balancing reality and eco-environment, is in the frontline of modern corporate management. Undoubtedly, the same as other corporate management, corporate eco-environment management also calls for accounting. However, the present corporate accounting can only identify something measurable. It is traditional accounting who emphasizes the successful economy of one company or efficiency optimization. For eco-environment management, if the description of one accountant is not so accurate, the policy made upon the basis of such inaccurate information would be somewhat misleading. Actually, the resource or environment crisis is the result of policy made on the basis of successful economy or efficiency optimization. In a great degree, accounting constitutes the main foundation of such success or efficiency evaluation. Because accountants'function is equally as mark recorders, and this"mark"does not take eco-environment into consideration. Therefore the resource or environment crisis is the natural result of the traditional mode of accounting, which should be more responsible for the worsening environment. For the reasons mentioned above, it can be concluded that the traditional accounting is not in line with the sustainable development strategy of enterprises. Thus it is a crucial problem to establish a system of management accounting for sustainable development, which can adapt to the corporate eco-environment management. Based on such consideration, the present dissertation conducts some research on management accounting for sustainable development from the perspective of ecological-economic system, in the hope of testifying the advancement of new theoretical frame in the field of modern management accounting, and providing practical guidance for corporate environment management.After a through literature review, this dissertation makes use of related theories in several disciplines such as economics, management science, environment management science, ecological economics, ecology science and environment science, and combine the latest thoughts and methods of modern management accounting with management accounting for sustainable development. Furthermore, through the improvement of modern management accounting methods and combine with corporate eco-environment management, the author proposes that enterprises take eco-environment into full consideration in the process of decision-making, control and performance evaluation so that the goal of eco-efficiency optimization and sustainable development of the corporate can be achieved.The dissertation consists of seven chapters:Chapter 1 presents the practical and theoretical backgrounds of writing this dissertation. It firstly briefs the research purpose, the significance as well as the backgrounds of writing this dissertation. Then, the research guidelines, methods, structure and main new ideas as well as the problems needing further study of the dissertation are introduced in a succinct way.Chapter 2 focuses on the process of historical evolvement of management accounting for sustainable development. Discussion firstly goes to the connotation and extension of some concepts related to eco-environment, and on the basis of that, the process of historical evolvement on management accounting is reviewed in order to probe into the trend of management accounting. Then it moves on to the analysis and comments on the backgrounds of the emergence of management accounting for sustainable development and the current research status. Meanwhile, it sums up the problems and limitations of current research home and abroad, and defines the connotations of management accounting for sustainable development and outlines the contents of it. Finally, a few pairs of concepts which are undistinguishable are to be discussed.Chapter 3 focuses on the theoretical frame of studying management accounting for sustainable development. By elaborating on some essential factors of this frame such as theoretical groundwork, goals, characteristics, principles, contents and etc, the dissertation holds its views that the theoretical groundwork is viewed as the cornerstones for the frame of theoretical research; the characteristics are regarded as the base for establishing knowledge system; the principles are the guidelines which should be adhered to while establishing the frame; the contents are the go-betweens that help the system operate smoothly, including three aspects based on the ecological-economic system—decision-making, control and performance evaluation.Chapter 4 lays emphasis on how to carry out the decisions made on the basis of ecological-economic system in the sustainable development of management accounting. At first, it presents a clear introduction on the factors that plays a decisive role in decision-making based on ecological-economic system—the definition, classification and function of environmental cost. Besides, it puts forward a decision-making method in accordance with the evaluation of environmental influences on and environmental cost of product life-cycle. Meanwhile, an analysis on the practice of these methods is provided in detail. It ends with concrete case studies.Chapter 5 pays much attention to some fundamental theories, procedures development and methods of control related to ecological-economic system. The outlines of this chapter are introduced as follows: Firstly, it briefs control theory and then moves on to the analysis on the motivation of control. Besides, the real connotation of cost control is elaborated from the perspective of ecological-economic system. Secondly, by regarding the environmental cost of product life-cycle as the newel, this part analyzes and elaborates on the feasibility, characteristics and basic procedures as well as some problems needing attention of control program. Thirdly, the basic meaning and features of product's ecological design are expanded. This design is viewed as one foreseeable method of ecological control. Apart from that, theoretical analysis and case studies go to the key points in the steps such as resources preparing, manufacturing and discarding in terms of product life-cycle.Chapter 6 mainly discusses how to carry out performance evaluation based on ecological-economic system in activities of management accounting for sustainable development. After defining and looking at the characteristics of corporate"triple bottom line"performance, environmental performance and economic performance, the dissertation, firstly, delimits the content of performance evaluation based on ecological-economic system (i.e. evaluation of eco-efficiency), then discusses two commonly-used evaluation methods: single evaluation method and integrated evaluation method. Also it gives its own evaluation and comments of several common integrated evaluation methods. Secondly, the dissertation selects a basic method for eco-efficiency evaluation, namely, FCE and AHP is to evaluate corporate environmental performance, and methods of Efficiency Coefficient and Integrated Analytic Judgment to evaluate corporate economic performance. At last, taking manufacturing enterprise as an example, the dissertation focuses its attention to design a frame for eco-efficiency evaluating system, and respectively constructs reference index systems for corporate environmental performance evaluation and economic performance evaluation. Based on this, an integrated evaluating module for corporate environment performance evaluation is formed on the basis of the second-layer FCE and this module is put into practice.Chapter 7 analyzes the status-quo and counter policy of management accounting for sustainable development in Chinese enterprises. In order to get the realistic condition, the author designs a questionnaire to investigate the status-quo and existed problems of Chinese enterprises'environment management. Many facts provide evidence and objectively describe the corporate environment management and provide in-depth analysis for the disadvantage of Chinese traditional management accounting. It is advisable for enterprises to pay more attention to management accounting for sustainable development. Moreover, the author puts forward several propositions for enterprises to carry out the strategic thought of management accounting for sustainable development and construct the supporting environment for the smooth development of management accounting for sustainable development.The main academic contributions of this dissertation are as follows:(1) This dissertation theoretically analyzes and distinguishes the related concepts of management accounting for sustainable development, which helps to get a better understanding for its outlines of the contents and theoretical research.(2) This dissertation provides a new visual angle to research this subject through an in-depth analysis on the connotation of ecological-economic system by enduing sustainable development with new meaning in microcosmic field. (3) This dissertation offers a relatively integrated analysis frame, which is good for expanding the further research. In accordance with related research on environmental cost, the author attempts to put forward the decision-making method of evaluating environmental influences and costs in terms of product life-cycle and a foreseeable method of ecological control on product design. Meanwhile, the dissertation provides the structure of the system of eco-efficiency evaluation and the referential system of evaluation index, and sets up a second-layer Fuzzy Comprehension Evaluation model for environmental performance evaluation. All these offer a valuable reference for the smooth operation of the system of management accounting for sustainable development.(4) According to the questionnaire results, this dissertation demonstrates the prospect of employing such management accounting for sustainable development in China. Furthermore, it discusses corresponding countermeasures to create the environment to make the system of enterprise's management accounting for sustainable development operate smoothly, which is of great significance for China's sustainable development of management accounting.