Research Group on Sustainability and Critical Accounting

Our group focuses on sustainability and critical accounting research.

Research focus and goals

The overarching question that our research group seeks to answer is whether, and if so how, accounting practices eventually help in the aspired transition to a just, socially and ecologically sustainable society. Our group is theoretically and methodologically open-minded, and we often approach our topics from a critical perspective. We consider accounting to be a powerful social institution, with a range of impacts on various social levels. Thus, interdisciplinarity is a defining feature of our research.

Accounting has a strong position in both organisations and society more broadly as a function that produces information for decision-makers and various stakeholders. Accounting concepts and practices have an impact on individuals’ choices, organizational decision-making as well as on societal practices and discourses more broadly. As critical accounting researchers, we challenge many taken-for-granted assumptions by asking whether things could be otherwise. Following the tradition of critical research, power and power structures are often in the foci of our research.

The importance of accounting in societies also implies that accounting concepts, practices and information have a key role in organisations’ and societies’ pursuit of low-carbon, biologically diverse and less unsustainable social and economic systems. As sustainability accounting researchers, we focus on considering the social and environmental implications of accounting alongside the more conventional economic dimension.

The aim of our research group is to undertake societally significant and scientifically high-quality research. Our group members lead, or are involved in, several research projects that receive funding from both Finnish and international sources.

Members

Tampere University

Other members

Oana Apostol, University of Vaasa

Contact persons

Tampere University

Eija Vinnari

Professor. Public financial management. Faculty of Management and Business.

+358503187602

eija.vinnari [at] tuni.fi (eija[dot]vinnari[at]tuni[dot]fi)

Tampere University

Matias Laine

Professor. laskentatoimi. Faculty of Management and Business.

+358503187752

matias.laine [at] tuni.fi (matias[dot]laine[at]tuni[dot]fi)

Current and recent research projects

SHARC: Sustainable shipping in the Arctic
1.9.2025 - 31.8.2029

Funded by: Research Council of Finland (Academy project)
PI: Hannele Mäkelä

The study examines constructions of sustainability and commercial viability in a context of particular significance to sustainable development, Arctic shipping. Business opportunities in the Arctic are in themselves a controversial topic, and part of the mega-debate on climate change: business development in the region will only be possible with the melting of the permafrost, caused by global warming. The impact of the research project is estimated to be extremely significant from the scientific, social and responsible business development perspectives. The study is divided into two parts: the construction of commercial viability as an accounting problem, and the construction of commercial viability in discursive practices. They both stem from the idea that commercial viability is not a neutral, purely technic-rational accounting concept, but is socially constructed. The project uses interview and documentary data and relies on qualitative research methods.

AccBiD: Accounting, biodiversity and firm decision-making
1.9.2025 - 31.8.2029

Funded by: Research Council of Finland (Academy project)
Consortium: Tampere University (PI Matias Laine) and University of Oulu (PI Janne Järvinen)

This proposal takes an accounting perspective on a key sustainability issue: biodiversity and ecological services. It seems evident that any sustainability transition to a nature-positive future is dependent on getting the business world involved. Financial and non-financial accounting information are key drivers of organizational behaviour. We maintain that the capability of organisations, financial markets and eventually societies more broadly to transition towards a sustainable future is dependent on the quality of information they have at their disposal. A key challenge in this quest lies with how organisations incorporate externalities, such as biodiversity loss, in their decision-making, which often require quantifying and monetizing aspects that are hard to compare. This project uses case study research to produce new knowledge on how considerations of biodiversity and ecological services can be incorporated into organisational decision-making processes.

ANIMA: Accounting, accountability and animals: negotiating the promises and pitfalls of quantification
1.9.2023 - 31.8.2026

Funded by: Research Council of Finland (Academy project)

Consortium: Tampere University (PI Eija Vinnari) and University of Helsinki (PI Markus Vinnari)

In this project we investigate the expansion of organizational accountability from humans to nun-human animals. In practical terms, the aim is to take animals' needs and interests as a starting point for developing indicators related to animal rights and animal welfare for two case organizations. When doing so, we also examine the impacts of such quantification on organizations and society.

CARACC: Carbon accounting and organisational decision-making,
1.9.2021 – 31.8.2025

Funded by: Academy of Finland

Consortium: University of Oulu (PI Prof Janne Järvinen) and Tampere University (PI Prof Matias Laine)

Towards sustainability? The role of corporate sustainability disclosures within society,
1.9.2017 – 31.8.2022

Funded by: Academy of Finland

Academy Research Fellow project, PI Matias Laine

Recent publications of the group members

Kingston, K., Luke, B. & Vinnari, E. (forthcoming). Understanding beneficiary evaluative capacity within nonprofit organisations through an immanent perspective. Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal. https://doi.org/10.1108/AAAJ-02-2024-6906

Kuokkanen, N. 2024. A problematizing review of the financialization of living beings. Critical Perspectives on Accounting, 99, 102739. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpa.2024.102739

Hyvönen, T., Laine, M., & Pellinen, J. 2024. Taking Carbon into Account in Capital Budgeting: A Field Study of Municipal Energy Companies in Finland. Social and Environmental Accountability Journal, 1–24. https://doi.org/10.1080/0969160X.2024.2337655

Laine, M. 2024. Accounting, reporting and verification of impact: Implications for sustainability: A commentary on Adams et al. (2023) “Styles of verification and the pursuit of organisational repair: The case of social impact”. Accounting, Organizations and Society. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aos.2023.101540

Grossi, G., Steccolini, I., Adhikari, P., Brown, J., Christensen, M., Cordery, C., Ferry, L., Lassou, P., McDonald III, B., Raudla, R., Sicilia, M. and Vinnari, E. 2023. The future of public sector accounting research. A polyphonic debate. Qualitative Research in Accounting & Management, 20(1), 1-37. https://doi.org/10.1108/QRAM-09-2022-0135

Apostol, O., Mäkelä, H. & Vinnari, E. 2023. Cultural sustainability and the construction of (in)commensurability: cultural heritage at the Roşia Montană mining site. Critical Perspectives on Accounting, 97, 102577.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1045235423000254

Heikkilä, T. 2023. The heart and soil of value-based business: emerging circular business network and vernacular accountings. Accounting Forum, 47(4), DOI: 10.1080/01559982.2023.2185851

Bebbington, J., Laine, M., Larrinaga, C. & Michelon, G. 2023. Environmental Accounting in the European Accounting Review: A Reflection. European Accounting Review, 32(5), https://doi.org/10.1080/09638180.2023.2254351

Himick, D. & Vinnari, E. 2023. Counter accounts, accountability and governance. In: Carnegie, G. and Napier, C. (eds.). Handbook of Accounting, Accountability and Governance, pp. 346-365. Edward Elgar Publishing.

Correa, C., Laine, M. & Larrinaga, C. 2023. Taking the world seriously: Autonomy, reflexivity and engagement research in social and environmental accounting. Critical Perspectives on Accounting, 102554. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpa.2023.102554

Apostol, O. 2022. Accounting for Anticorruption: Where Are the Social and Environmental Accounting Scholars?, Social and Environmental Accountability Journal, 42(3), 223-234.

Laaksonen, J. 2022. Translation, hegemony and accounting: A critical research framework with an illustration from the IFRS context. Critical Perspectives on Accounting, 102352. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpa.2021.102352

Mäkelä, H. & Cho, C.H. 2022. Calls for accountability and sustainability: how organisations respond. In Adams, C.A. (ed.) Handbook of Accounting and Sustainability. Edward Elgar Publishing.

Rodrigue, M. & Laine, M. 2022. Shadow accounts and alternative portrayals. In Adams, C.A. (ed.) Handbook of Accounting and Sustainability. Edward Elgar Publishing.

Jokinen, J., Mäkelä, M., Heikkilä, K., Apostol, O., Kalliomäki, H. & Saarni, J. 2022. Creating futures images for sustainable cruise ships: Insights on collaborative foresight for sustainability enhancement. Futures, 135, 102873

Järvinen, J., Laine, M., Hyvönen, T. & Kantola, H. 2022. Just look at the numbers: A Case Study on Quantification in Corporate Environmental Disclosures. Journal of Business Ethics, 175, 23-44. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-020-04600-7

Laine, M., Tregidga, H. & Unerman, J. 2022. Sustainability Accounting and Accountability. 3rd edition. Routledge.

Tregidga, H. & Laine, M. 2022. On crisis and emergency: Is it time to rethink long-term environmental accounting? Critical Perspectives on Accounting, 82, 102311.

Vinnari, E., Chua, W.F. & Baxter, J. 2022. Accounting, accountability and animals. Critical Perspectives on Accounting, 84, 102412. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpa.2021.102412

Vinnari, E. & Vinnari, M. 2022. Making the invisibles visible: including animals in sustainability (and) accounting. Critical Perspectives on Accounting, 82, 102324. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpa.2021.102324

Albu, N., Albu, C.N., Apostol, O. & Cho, C. 2021. The past is never dead: the role of imprints in shaping social and environmental reporting in a post-communist context. Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal, 34(5), 1109-1136.

Apostol, O., Mäkelä, M., Heikkilä, K., Höyssä, M., Kalliomäki, H., Jokinen, L. & Saarni, J. 2021. Triggering sustainability communication in a B2B context: combining action research and sensemaking. Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal, 34(4), 849-876.

Laaksonen, J. 2021. International comparability and translation: how is the concept of equivalence used and understood in accounting research? Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, 34(1), 137-163.

Laine, M. & Vinnari, E. 2021. Counter-narratives in accounting research: a methodological perspective. In: Lueg, K., & Lundholt, M. W. (Eds.). The Routledge Handbook of Counter-Narratives, pp. 122-131. Routledge.

Mäkelä, H. 2021. Roles of accounting in shaping a contested terrain of social enterprise. Social and Environmental Accountability Journal, 41(3), 151-170. https://doi.org/10.1080/0969160X.2021.1872397

Mäkelä, H. 2021. Vastuullisuusraportoinnin monet roolit. In Vastuullinen viestintä, ProComma Academic 2021. pp. 76-90.

Silvola, H. & Vinnari, E. 2021. The limits of institutional work: a field study on auditors’ efforts to promote sustainability assurance in a trust society. Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, 34(1), 1-30.

Tregidga, H. & Laine, M. 2021. Stand-alone and integrated reporting. In Bebbington, J., Larrinaga, C., O’Dwyer, B. & Thomson, I. (eds.) Routledge Handbook on Environmental Accounting. Routledge.

Vinnari, E. (2021). Animals, activists and accounting: on confronting an intellectual dead end. Social and Environmental Accountability Journal, 41(3), 194-200. https://doi.org/10.1080/0969160X.2021.1889387

Vinnari, E. & Vinnari, M. 2021. Accounting for animal rights. In: J. Bebbington, C. Larrinaga, B. O’Dwyer & I. Thomson (eds.). Routledge Handbook on Environmental Accounting. Routledge.

Laaksonen J. & Koskinen, K. 2020. Venuti and the Ethics of Difference. In Koskinen, K. & N.K. Pokorn (Eds.) Routledge Handbook of Translation and Ethics. Routledge.

Laine, M., Scobie, M., Sorola, M. & Tregidga, H. 2020. Special Issue Editorial: Social and Environmental Account/Ability 2020 and Beyond. Social and Environmental Accountability Journal, 40(1), 1-23.

Peda, P. & Vinnari, E. 2020. The discursive legitimation of profit in public-private service delivery. Critical Perspectives on Accounting, 69. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpa.2019.06.002

Apostol, O. & Pop, A. 2019. ‘Paying taxes is losing money’: A qualitative study on institutional logics in the tax consultancy field in Romania. Critical Perspectives on Accounting, 58, 1-23.

Dillard, J. & Vinnari, E. 2019. Critical dialogic accountability: From accounting-based accountability to accountability-based accounting. Critical Perspectives on Accounting, 62, 16-38.

Heikkinen, A., Nieminen, J., Kujala, J., Mäkelä, H., Jokinen, A. & Lehtonen, O. (2019), Stakeholder engagement in the generation of urban ecosystem services. In Kangas, Kujala, Heikkinen, Lönnqvist, & Laihonen (eds) Leadership for Change. Tampere Univ. Press.

Kujala, J., Heikkinen, A., Nieminen, J., Jokinen, A., Lehtonen, O., Tapaninaho, R. & Mäkelä, H. (2019), Stakeholder interests in ecosystem services. Case Vuores stormwater system. In Day, A. K. & Lehtimäki, Hanna. Evolving Business Models in Ecosystem of Disruptive Technologies and Social Media. Bloomsbury, pp. 136–146.

Mäkelä, H. & Laine, M. 2019. Laskentatoimen ympäristösuhde. Tiede & Edistys, 44(2), 120-134.

Puroila, J. and Mäkelä, H. 2019. Matter of opinion. Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal. 32(4), 1043-1072.

Upcoming and past research seminars

Upcoming seminars

17.9.2025
Workshop w/ guests Susan O'Leary and Helen Tregidga (Royal Holloway University of London)

Past seminars

5.6.2025
SCA & RESPMAN Research workshop on Accounting, Sustainability & Beyond.

The day starts with a keynote by Professor Jan Bebbington (Lancaster University, UK), who will be conferred an Honorary Doctorate at the upcoming Tampere University Doctoral Conferment.

Jan Bebbington: Corporate Biosphere Stewardship in the Anthropocene
Thu 5.6.2025 at 9.30-10.45, lecture room A3 (city campus, main building). Welcome!

9.4.2025
Interdisciplinary Workshop:

Niina Kuokkanen et al. (Tampere University) - Accounting, epistemes, and animals: Imagining alternative frameworks
Milla Helminen (Tampere University) - The (lack of) common bad in corporate sustainability reporting
Daniela Schlager et al. (University of Vienna) - Constructing translation expertise: the role of calculative practices
Anniina Kinnunen et al. (Jyväskylä University School of Business and Economics) - Managers’ use of management accounting information for framing

11.12.2024
Junyuan Chen (Royal Holloway University of London)
Silence as a response to an exploitative work regime: theorising unvoiced accounts
Discussant: Niina Kuokkanen

12.9.2024
Emerging Scholars Workshop:

Timo Heikkilä (Tampere University) - Footprints on the soil: A perspective of accounting for soil
Benjamin Falch (University of Innsbruck) - Witness the Fitness: The BioAge Gamification & Control at EGYM
Niina Kuokkanen (Tampere University) - The Limits of Valuation: Nature's Resistance to Natural Capital Accounting
Suvi Mutanen (Tampere University/ANIMA) - Animal politics in three Finnish cities

18.4.2024
The language of sustainability: joint workshop with the JARGONFREE research group

14.12.2023
Hendrik Vollmer (Warwick Business School):
Accountability gets to matter
Discussant: Niina Kuokkanen

29.11.2023
Sami El Geneidy (University of Jyväskylä):
Value-transforming financial, carbon and biodiversity footprint accounting
Discussant: Timo Heikkilä

27.10.2023
Jaana Kettunen & Hanna Silvola (Hanken):
Social Impact Bonds: a solution in search of problems
Discussant: Eija Vinnari

30.05.2023
Nicolás García Torea (University of Burgos, Spain)
The EU Taxonomy and sustainability accounting: which factors shape banks’ compliance with sustainability reporting requirements?
Discussant: Niina Hakala

13.04.2023
Silvia Jordan (University of Innsbruck, Austria)
Translating the ‘local’: The case of Islamic performance evaluation practices in Iranian public management
Discussant: Elina Vikstedt

15.12.2022
Claire Deng (Ryerson University, Canada)
Rethinking Accountability for Biodiversity
Discussant: Hannele Mäkelä

6.10.2022
Linda Hintsteiner (University of Innsbruck, Austria)
On the results-orientation of cost centres. How do they link costs to results?
Discussant: Hannele Mäkelä

19.5.2022
Thomas Cuckston (University of Birmingham, UK)
Accounting for Nature-Positive: Analysing the Calculative Space Produced by the Taskforce for Nature-Related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) Beta Framework
Discussant: Eija Vinnari

24.02.2022
Shona Russell (University of St. Andrews, UK)
Mapping climate change in accounting education: challenges and possibilities for sustainability transformations
Discussant: Oana Apostol

10.12.2021
Wai Fong Chua (University of Sydney, Australia)
Events-effects: how matter affects accounting measurement differentially
Discussant: Jan Pfister (Turku School of Economics)

Earlier seminars in cooperation with Turku School of Economics, University of Turku

10.6.2021
Sonja Gallhofer (University of Glasgow)
Alternative accounts and wellbeing: Exploring the transformative power of renarration

20.5.2021
Lies Bouten (IÉSEG School of Management)
Designing controls to manage tensions in hybrid organizations: Insights from a hotel chain
Discussant: Oana Apostol

29.4.2021
Paolo Quattrone (University of Manchester)
Accounting for 'com-promeso': Common good, collective institutional commitment, and the gereative power of ambiguous quantifications at the Instituto per la Ricostruzione Industriale (IRI) (1943-1972)
Discussant: Kari Lukka (Turku School of Economics)

25.3.2021
Giuseppe Grossi (Nord University)
Accounting for whom and what direction? Opening a 'fairy tale' of smart city rankings to critical scrutiny
Discussant: Erkki Lassila (Turku School of Economics)

25.2.2021
Oana Apostol (Tampere University) & Colin Dey (University of Stirling)
Social movements, counter product and interstitial transformation: an exploration of the Degrowth movement in Finland
Discussant: Jenni Laaksonen

28.1.2021
Kari Lukka (Turku School of Economics) & Albrecht Becker (University of Innsbruck)
The future of critical interdisciplinary accounting research: Towards performative ontology
Discussant: Matias Laine

26.11.2020
Stefan Illich-Edlinger (University of St. Gall & Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU))
The Emergence of Enabling Accountability Systems: How Analytics Initiatives Unroutinize Planning and Forecasting
Discussant: Kirsi-Mari Kallio (Turku School of Economics)

22.10.2020
Emilia Cederberg (Stockholm School of Economics)
Almost there: Boundary operations in ESG analysis practice
Discussant: Eija Vinnari

24.9.2020
Claire Dambrin (ESCP Europe)
Assetizing the self: The fructification of human capital on and by peer-to-peer platforms
Discussant: Jan Pfister (Turku School of Economics)

3.9.2020
Kari Lukka (Turku School of Economics), Eija Vinnari (Tampere University), Sven Modell (University of Manchester)
Coping with clashing epistemologies: The effects of the normal science tradition on the use of Actor-Network Theory in accounting research
Discussant: Peeter Peda

8.5.2020
Lukas Goretzki (Stockholm School of Economics) & Jan Pfister (Turku School of Economics)
Taste your own medicine: Performance measurement systems as identity threats to the management accountant
Discussant: Hannele Mäkelä

27.4.2020
Jenni Laaksonen
Harmonization versus assimilation - A critical perspective on IFRS translation from the English-language original into local languages.
Discussant: Oana Apostol (Turku School of Economics)

20.2.2020
Albrecht Becker (University of Innsbruck)
From local concerns to national solutions: The emergence of a national healthcare quality assessment system in Austria.
Discussant: Matias Laine

23.1.2020
Hendrik Vollmer (University of Leicester)
Public value and the planet: accounting and ecological reconstruction
Discussant: Kari Lukka (Turku School of Economics)

Research Group on Sustainability and Critical Accounting

Research focus and goals

Members

Matias Laine

Hannele Mäkelä

Eija Vinnari

Timo Heikkilä

Jenni Laaksonen

Niina Ylönen

Milla Helminen

Other members

Contact persons

Eija Vinnari

Matias Laine