Darrell Brown

Strategically Informed, Environmentally Conscious Information Requirements for Accounting Information Systems

Accounting information systems (AIS) should provide the information firms need to manage organizational activities. Environmental considerations are increasingly important in the business world, so firms are attending more to environmental risks and activities. AIS must respond to these emerging environmental requirements. We develop an information matrix for identifying alternative management strategies for framing and responding to environmental issues. The proposed matrix provides a tool for identifying the information collected, stored, analyzed, and reported in environmentally attuned accounting information systems.

Valuing ecological systems and services

Making trade-offs between ecological services and other contributors to human well-being is a difficult but critical process that requires valuation. This allows both better recognition of the ecological, social, and economic trade-offs and also allows us to bill those who use up or destroy ecological services and reward those that produce or enhance them. It also aids improved ecosystems policy. In this paper we clarify some of the controversies in defining the contributions to human well-being from functioning ecosystems, many of which people are not even aware of. We go on to describe the applicability of the various valuation methods that can be used in estimating the benefits of ecosystem services. Finally, we describe some recent case studies and lay out the research agenda for ecosystem services analysis, modeling, and valuation going forward.

An Environmentally Enlightened Accounting

Abstract Environmental stewardship must become a primary concern if management is to adequately fulfil its societal responsibilities. Management and accounting information systems must aggressively respond to these emerging requirements in order to support adequately the associated information needs as well as to design organizational systems that motivate and facilitate desired behavior. Our purpose here is to consider a framework useful for developing environmentally enlightening management and accounting information systems that take into account alternative environmental perspectives. The framework can be used to develop prototypes representing different levels of environmental enlightenment, and as such, can provide general guidance for moving collectives and organizations toward a more environmentally responsible posture. The framework is illustrated using an example from the salmon farming industry provided in [Geogakopoulous, G., & Thomson, I., 2004. Organic salmon farming: Risk perceptions, decision heuristics and the absence of environmental accounting. In Proceedings of the Asia Pacific Interdisciplinary Research in Accounting. Singapore, July 4–7, 2004, this paper has since been published in this edition of Accounting Forum].

The Strategy of Sustainability: A Systems Perspective on Environmental Initiatives

How can a firm most effectively pursue environmental sustainability? This article employs a systems dynamics approach to analyze two strategic environmental sustainability initiatives implemented by Norm Thompson Outfitters. Such an analysis provides a way to identify the key variables and their relationships, the roles of key stakeholders, and the leverage points used to support the sustainability initiatives. The experience of Norm Thompson demonstrates how using systems dynamics can assist a company in identifying and implementing environmental sustainability initiatives.

The division of labor between human and computer in the presence of decision support system advice

Prior research suggests that decision support system (DSS) provide model advice and display non-modeled information for decision makers [4,13]. We investigate whether decision makers (1) delegate the processing of the modeled information to the model, (2) cognitively process the non-modeled information, and (3) decide based on the models advice adjusted for the non-modeled information. Experimentally, decision makers were no more likely to execute normative strategies when they had requisite knowledge for the strategy than when they did not have the requisite knowledge. We observed alternative processing, including ignoring the advice altogether, and evaluating the advice. Our findings suggest that DSS builders must encourage decision strategies that capitalize on the relative strengths of human and computer in using those features.