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Higher education institutions (HEIs) are influential social institutions which educate future decision-makers and shape society as a whole. Motivated by new public management, the proliferation of business tools, and a rising awareness for responsible acting, environmental management has also become a matter for HEIs. Focusing on performance outcomes and improvement based mechanisms leads to a professionalization through the active management of environmental issues. Therefore, the support of management structures is an essential prerequisite when implementing environmental efforts. Thus far, little attention has been dedicated to environmental management performance and steering processes of environmental issues in HEIs, which marks the research gap of this study. This article presents results of a survey on the concept of environmental management performance (EMP) based on Trumpp et al. (2015) aiming to answer the research question of how HEIs conduct environmental management along the dimensions of EMP, which includes environmental policy, environmental objectives, environmental processes, organizational structures, and monitoring. The results show that, as of now, HEIs pursue no common practice when approaching EMP. Nevertheless, two thirds of the respondents show an orientation towards sustainability with particularly high values regarding issues of environmental policy.

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This study uses survey data from top managers to explore how operational (e.g., cost types and cost center accounting) and strategically oriented (e.g., strategic and business planning) management accounting (MA) practices, diagnostic and interactive use of performance measures, and cultural controls are combined (management control package) to achieve high firm performance in family businesses (FBs). In previous research, such management control (MC) packages have received limited attention even though they offer an opportunity to reveal more information on the adoption of MA practices, use of performance measures, and MCs in FBs than analyses of individual control mechanisms. We chose a qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) because this method allows for explicitly addressing the three major challenges of configurational theory: asymmetry, conjunctional causation, and equifinality. By applying QCA, our study identifies six equifinal MC packages (i.e., different configurations of MA practices, types of use, and cultural controls with similar associations with firm performance) and, thus, provides an exploratory approach to describe more complex MA and MC designs that are empirically observable. By further analyzing these MC packages with additional information on the intensity of competition, the intensity of attention focusing, the interpretation of information by top management, and the organizational culture, this study extends the existing literature on FBs. The key finding of our analysis is that, regardless of their business environment, successful FBs place a very strong emphasis on cultural controls and/or have a high degree of interactive use of performance measures to steer their business.

Die Digitalisierung und damit einhergehende vielfältige Softwarelösungen ermöglichen Unternehmen die Implementierung von Managementinnovationen. Das Controlling spielt dabei durch den Einsatz einer kultur- wie auch einer maßnahmen- und personalbezogenen Steuerung eine entscheidende Rolle. Dieser Beitrag erläutert das Zusammenspiel von Managementinnovationen und Controlling und beleuchtet dabei die Bedeutung verschiedener Unternehmenskulturtypen.