The societal vision of sustainable development changes both the context of businesses and expectations that management should contribute to solving sustainability problems beyond organizational boundaries. Companies are influenced by macro-level developments such as new environmental regulations and by meso-level context such as social industry standards and guidelines. At the same time, companies are expected to contribute to sustainability transformations of markets at the meso-level and to solving grand sustainability problems at the macro-level such as the greenhouse effect. These developments increase and change sustainability information needs of managers and management accounting. This paper provides a systematic literature review of how sustainability management accounting (SMA) addresses links with the organization's contexts and contributions to sustainability transformations beyond organizational boundaries. The analysis questions the conventional assumption of an internal scope for SMA. It recognises this as a problematic constricting assumption in the literature and, instead, proposes a multi-level Context, Action-formation and Transformative contributions (CAT) framework for further development of SMA.

Accounting has been identified as a key area to inform managers seeking to transform businesses towards sustainability. Empirical research, however, shows that management accountants are scarcely involved in sustainability accounting. This paper contributes to understanding their barriers, using path dependence theory as a theoretical framework to empirically investigate how accountants have become “locked in” by self‐reinforcing mechanisms. Based on semistructured interviews with 33 management accountants in Germany, the paper identifies three interrelated self‐reinforcing mechanisms that inhibit accountants from sustainability involvement. A strong focus on financial priorities and incremental improvements driven by top management expectations hinder the consideration of sustainability beyond its direct costs. Specialization is another barrier, as is an understanding of sustainability as peripheral rather than a core business. Contrary to prior literature, accountants express eagerness to learn, though rarely about sustainability. They rarely question assumptions about sustainability and their role, leading to missed opportunities for double‐loop learning and more transformative change.

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