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Legitimacy Theory in Management Accounting Research

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DOI: 10.7172/1644-9584.72.12

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 Problemy ZarzÈdzania, vol. 16, nr 1 (72), cz. 1: 195 –203
ISSN 1644-9584, © Wydziaï ZarzÈdzania UW
DOI 10.7172/1644-9584.72.12

Legitimacy Theory in Management Accounting Research

Submitted: 15.10.17 | Accepted: 30.12.17

Beata Zyznarska-Dworczak*
Legitimacy theory helps to understand the organization’s behavior in implementing, developing and
communicating its social responsibility policies. The main assumption of legitimacy theory is fulfilling
the organization’s social contract, which enables the recognition of its objectives. This in turn requires
the adoption of a CSR strategy affecting various areas of activity, including in particular management
accounting. The paper draws arguments from literature to identify the role of the legitimacy theory in
management accounting research. The article’s thesis is that sustainable management accounting is
ab valuable tool of legitimacy for a socially responsible company. The paper is structured as follows:
after the introduction, the second section provides the background for the research study; it is a lit-
erature review concerning the way in which accounting legitimizes the status of a socially responsible
corporate. The third section of the paper presents sustainable management accounting (SMA) as a tool
for legitimacy in a socially responsible company. And the last section is dedicated to the presentation of
SMA development directions. On the basis of a normative approach, it presents the author’s proposal of
treatment of sustainable management accounting as a tool for sustainable business legitimacy.
Keywords: management accounting, corporate social responsibility, CSR, theory of legitimacy, legitimacy.

Teoria legitymizacji wb badaniach rachunkowoĂci zarzÈdczej

Nadesïany: 15.10.17 | Zaakceptowany do druku: 30.12.17

Teoria legitymacji pomaga zrozumieÊ zachowanie organizacji w zakresie wdraĝania, rozwijania i komuniko-
wania swoich zasad odpowiedzialnoĂci spoïecznej. Gïównym zaïoĝeniem teorii legitymizacji jest realizacja
kontraktu spoïecznego organizacji, która umoĝliwia uznanie jej celów. To z kolei wymaga przyjÚcia strategii
CSR wpïywajÈcej na róĝne obszary dziaïalnoĂci, w tym w szczególnoĂci na rachunkowoĂÊ zarzÈdczÈ.
Artykuï ukazuje zrównowaĝonÈ rachunkowoĂÊ zarzÈdczÈ (SMA) jako narzÚdzie legitymacji dla jednostki
odpowiedzialnej spoïecznie. Artykuï jest sformuïowany w nastÚpujÈcy sposób: po wprowadzeniu, druga
sekcja stanowi tïo dla badañ – jest to przeglÈd literatury dotyczÈcy sposobu, w jaki rachunkowoĂÊ legity-
mizuje status jednostki spoïecznie odpowiedzialnej. Trzecia czÚĂÊ artykuïu przedstawia SMA jako narzÚdzie
legitymizacji w jednostce odpowiedzialnej spoïecznie. Ostatnia czÚĂÊ poĂwiÚcona jest prezentacji kierunków
rozwoju SMA. Na podstawie podejĂcia normatywnego przedstawiono propozycjÚ autora, aby traktowaÊ
zrównowaĝonÈ rachunkowoĂÊ zarzÈdczÈ jako narzÚdzie sïuĝÈce zrównowaĝonej legitymizacji biznesowej.
Sïowa kluczowe: rachunkowoĂÊ zarzÈdcza, spoïeczna odpowiedzialnoĂÊ biznesu, CSR, teoria legitymi-
zacji, legitymizacja.
JEL: M41, M49
* Beata Zyznarska-Dworczak – PhD, Poznañ University of Economics and Business, Faculty of Man-
agement.

Correspondence address: Poznañ University of Economics and Business, Al. NiepodlegïoĂci 10,
61-875b Poznañ; e-mail: [email protected].
 Beata Zyznarska-Dworczak

1. Introduction
The world-famous sentence of Winston S. Churchill “The price of great-
ness is responsibility” can refer to every sphere of life, including economic
life. This motto is of particular importance in ab socially responsible enter-
prise that does not ignore its impact on the environment, but strives to
acquire knowledge of its own socio-economic and environmental potential,
tries to measure it, manage it, and communicate it to the stakeholders. The
company assumes that this attitude is desirable for the current system of
values in the economic and social life and it shows this approach not only
by external reporting but by management accountability of the corporate
activities undertaken for sustainable development. The approach of taking
account of social relationships in management accounting is in line with
the legitimacy theory.
The purpose of the paper is to present the conclusions of the analysis
of the importance of management accounting for corporate social respon-
sibility (CSR). The analysis is conducted in the light of the legitimacy
theory. The purpose of the study was to answer the research questions:
how does accountancy legitimize the status of absustainable enterprise, how
does internal social responsibility accounting become the tool of legitimacy
of ab sustainable enterprise and what are the directions of internal social
responsibility accounting development. Research methods were used in the
search for the answers in the form of critical analysis of scientific literature
and deductive inference. The inference made it possible to show the author’s
approach to treating internal social responsibility accounting as abtool for the
legitimacy of absustainable enterprise. It allows for indicating the predicted
directions of sustainable management accounting development.

2. Legitimizing the Status of ab Socially Responsible Company

by Means of Accounting
Legitimacy theory is crucial in explaining the organization’s behavior in
implementing and developing social responsibility policies, and then commu-
nicating its results. It treats corporate social and environmental performance
and disclosure of this information as abway to fulfill the organization’s social
contract that enables the recognition of its objectives. The sustainability of
legitimacy theory is based on the management heritage that connects tradi-
tional norms and values with modern ethics (Burlea and Popa, 2013, p. 1579).
Legitimacy is abmandate to act, to give something legal force, to sanction.
Legitimacy is also considered to be abgeneralized perception or an assump-
tion that the subject’s actions are desirable or appropriate in ab socially
constructed system of norms, values, beliefs and definitions (Suchman,
1995, p. 574; Deephouse and Suchman, 2008, pp. 51–52). Legitimacy in
an enterprise is derived from its subordination to social norms and the

196 DOI 10.7172/1644-9584.72.12

 Legitimacy Theory in Management Accounting Research

law. It must be noted that there is ab positive correlation between the size
of the enterprise and its drive for legitimacy (Van der Laan, Van Ees and
Van Witteloostuijn, 2008, pp. 306–308).
The basic premise of the theory of legitimacy is the belief that abcompany
influences the society in which it operates. At the same time, the company
is also socially influenced, that is why its functioning is similar to ab kind
of social contract aimed at obtaining and maintaining social acceptance
(’ada and Kozarkiewicz, 2014, p. 48). This social acceptance of the actions
undertaken by the company is particularly important in the CSR era.
Legitimizing from the perspective of ab socially responsible company
means the authorization to act justified by rational premises. And dem-
onstrating the legality of action is perceived as having ab fair impact on
the internal and external environment. It supports the justification of the
legitimacy to affect the ever-scarcer resources that it owns and uses, as well
as those resources affected indirectly. Increasingly, the perceived resource
constraints in the world imply ab need, increasingly turning into an obliga-
tion, to communicate the entity’s responsible management to the internal
and external environment.
The legitimacy theory has abvery rich disciplinary background based on
management theory, institutional theory, and stakeholder theory (Burlea and
Popa, 2013, p. 1579). Therefore, it is used in many scientific studies, also
by accounting researchers. The dominant status that legitimacy theory has
attained in social accounting research has contributed to the understand-
ing of the motives and the incentives that lead firms’ managers to engage
in social and environmental disclosure activities (Patten, 1991; Brown and
Deegan, 1998; Wilmshurst and Frost, 2000; O’Donovan, 2002; Deegan,
Rankin and Tobin, 2002; Deegan, 2007; Archel, Husillos, Larrinaga and
Spence, 2009). Nevertheless, despite its widespread application, theory of
legitimacy is still an underdeveloped theory and needs further refinements
(Archel et al., 2009, pp. 1284–1285). There is very little scientific research
using legitimacy theory in other areas influenced by sustainability, espe-
cially relating to management accounting. They are still in development
and require further in-depth research.
According to the European Sustainability Reporting Association, “the
profession needs to recognise the wider impact of sustainability which
touches on many areas of its competence not only to financial reporting
and assurance, but also corporate governance, management accounting,
systems and controls” (Report by the FEE, p. 1). Furthermore, recent
management accounting studies demonstrate the need for multi-dimensional
performance, especially non-financial performance measures of CSR activi-
ties and the results (Husain, 2006, p. 129). To find abtheoretical justification
for the indicated trends observed in practice, in the economic world it is
necessary to take into account the assumptions of the legitimization theory.
The choice of legitimacy theory is based on the notion that accounting for

Problemy ZarzÈdzania vol. 16, nr 1 (72), cz. 1, 2018 197

 Beata Zyznarska-Dworczak

sustainable development and the associated role of the management accoun-

tant in sustainable development is used as ab communication mechanism
to inform and/or manipulate the perception of the entity’s actions (Mistry,
Sharma and Low, 2014, p. 112).
The author of this paper suggests that there are two dimensions of
social accountability – internal, related to the resource management in an
enterprise, and external, related to the reporting and communication of
the results to the external auditorium. Each dimension serves the primary
purpose of social responsibility accounting, i.e. forming the appropriate
basis for enforcement of corporate social responsibility, based on internal
and external accounting, to legitimize the status of absustainable enterprise.
These two dimensions of social responsibility accounting in the light
of the theory of legitimacy can be considered from the perspective of the
division of legitimization into institutional legitimacy and strategic legiti-
macy. Institutional legitimacy determines external reporting, while strategic
legitimacy determines the role of internal accounting. The strategic per-
spective of legitimacy assumes that legitimacy can be managed in order to
achieve organizational goals. It means therefore adopting ab management
perspective. In scientific research (Pfeffer, 1981, p. 5), it is presented as an
operating resource of an enterprise that is selected from the environment
to pursue its goals.

3. Internal Accountability as ab Tool to Legitimize

ab Sustainableb Enterprise
The theory of legitimacy is relatively rarely applied to accounting solu-
tions for internal management needs (’ada and Kozarkiewicz, 2013, p. 169).
There is also little information about the importance of social responsibility
accounting in the perspective of management legitimacy. Yet, as indicated
by Burlea and Popa (2013), it is important to note that the long-term
impact of legitimacy on the economic and financial performance of the
organization will generate many internal conflicts of the multi-dimensional
construct of legitimacy, which will influence the transition from legitimacy to
illegitimacy and from illegitimacy to legitimacy. Therefore, it is so important
to use internal tools for managing legitimacy in an enterprise, including
management accounting. However, there are not many studies in this field
in the literature. The analysis of Anglo-Saxon, German and Polish scien-
tific literature allowed for indicating four dominant definitions of internal
accounting of social responsibility:
1. Management Accounting for Sustainable Development (Birkin and
Woodward, 1997; Mistry et al., 2014).
2. Sustainable/Sustainability Management Accounting (Petcharat and Mula,
2010; Arroyo, 2012; Owen, 2013; Zyznarska-Dworczak, 2015; Sands and
Lee, 2015).

198 DOI 10.7172/1644-9584.72.12

 Legitimacy Theory in Management Accounting Research

3. Managerial Social Responsibility Accounting, Social Responsibility Man-

agement Accounting (Hussain, 2006; Arroyo, 2008).
4. Environmental and Social Management Accounting (Bennett, Bouma
and Wolters, 2006; Sands and Lee, 2015).
5. CSR-Controlling (Greiling and Ther, 2011; Gleich, Bartels and Breisig,
2012; Sailer, 2016).
An analysis of the forms and meaning of internal social responsibility
accounting indicates that, despite the differences in names, its main idea
is to enable accountability of the corporate activities undertaken for sus-
tainable development. Therefore, the author proposes to harmonize the
names of internal accounting of social responsibility and to adopt the term
sustainable management accounting (SMA).
The form of strategic legitimization is the way in which abcompany use
its “operational resource”. Therefore, the main goal of SMA is to support
companies and organizations in assessing and managing their sustainability
performance. According to Sands and Lee, there are five ways to achieve
this goal (Sands and Lee, 2015, p. 2):
– SMA provides support to companies by quantifying environmental
impacts and loads on the workers, community, and other stakeholders;
– SMA supplies sustainable performance measures for operational pro-
cesses and reporting guidance;
– SMA offers businesses the opportunity to gather information that identi-
fies costs and savings that will result in improved financial performance;
– SMA gives businesses ab chance to recognize risks and opportunities
related to their operations;
– SMA produces physical and monetary measurements that are vital in
all efficient and effective sustainability management practices.
In this way, SMA becomes an instrument of legitimization of absustain-
able enterprise. It legitimates the management actions that implement the
corporate social responsibility strategy.

4. Main Directions for the Development of Sustainable

Management Accounting in the Light of the Legitimacy Theory
Sustainable management accounting involves, at an early stage of devel-
opment, both its theoretical and practical use. Its development has ab sig-
nificant impact on the legitimacy of sustainable aspirations of companies. It
depends mainly on the research undertaken and also on the effectiveness
of its practical implementation in the area of SMA. The reverse direction
– practical knowledge in the use of sustainable management accounting
in legitimizing the status of socially responsible business – can also be an
inspiration for theoretical considerations.
The key factors determining the development of sustainable manage-
ment accounting are the following:

Problemy ZarzÈdzania vol. 16, nr 1 (72), cz. 1, 2018 199

 Beata Zyznarska-Dworczak

– strengthening the role of the SMA in assessing and planning the imple-
mentation of social responsibility policies based on the combination of
multidimensional financial and non-financial data indicating the degree
of harmonization of economic, social, environmental and cultural objec-
tives;
– use of SMA to measure the socio-economic potential of absocially respon-
sible company and to anticipate its long-term change;
– use of SMA to communicate the achievements related to the realization
of the strategic objectives of the social responsibility policy concerning
internal and external environment of an socially responsible enterprise;
– adaptation of SMA to motivate employees of absocially responsible com-
pany to understand and respect social responsibility policies;
– selection of SMA instrumentation and its development in the field of
financial and non-financial information integration;
– use of SMA to motivate companies to develop management accounting
systems, and to exchange information from the management accounting
system in interorganizational relationships.
The indicated possibilities for using sustainable management account-
ing to legitimize management activities in absocially responsible enterprise
combine the main objectives of planning and controlling the actions for
sustainable development targeted at the adopted social responsibility strat-
egy. To assess the effectiveness of these activities, it is necessary to use the
integrated financial and non-financial information generated in the frame-
work of sustainable management accounting. Therefore, the most important
challenge of SMA is the coupling of multidimensional data, forming the
basis for rational management decisions in the legitimacy management in
economic, social, environmental and cultural surroundings.
Furthermore, the ability to measure and anticipate one’s own socio-
economic and environmental potential can significantly help to assess the
rationality of actions for sustainable development. Logical and transparent
communication of an adopted and valid management approach to sustain-
able development can help to present the company’s potential for better
understanding both by external and internal stakeholders. SMA can also
be ab tool to motivate employees to take ab responsible attitude at their
workplace.
To fulfill the forecasted tasks of sustainable management accounting,
it is necessary to reconstruct its existing system or to build ab new one.
To equip it with integrated instrumentation will be particularly important,
allowing ab multidimensional and multifaceted analysis of measurable and
non-measurable information. Only in the initial stage of research and prac-
tical use do the tools integrate traditional accounting information systems
with measurement of sustainable development. The most popular instru-
ments are the following: Activity-Based Responsibility Accounting, Sustain-
able Balanced Scorecard, Activity- and Strategy-Based Responsibility Account-

200 DOI 10.7172/1644-9584.72.12

 Legitimacy Theory in Management Accounting Research

ing, Environmental and Life Cycle Costing. They are usually supplemented
with abproblem analysis such as the production and financial management
analysis, the economic analysis of an impact of product quality, the envi-
ronmental costing.
Although the tools provide considerable support for abmovement towards
sustainable development, little empirical evidence exists regarding how
extensive the roles of management accountants have become in accounting
for sustainable development (Mistry et al., 2014, p. 113). With the construc-
tion of abnew management accounting system, it is crucial that management
accountants and managers consider sustainable development as an integral
part of their decision-making. According to Albelda (2011), management
accountants acted as facilitators of sustainable development. The role for the
management accountant can be perceived as two-dimensional (Wilmshurst
and Frost 2001, p. 136):
1) involvement in the company’s internal operations, focusing upon per-
formance and compliance concerns, and
2) in the external dimension, relating to the economic information disclo-
sure to external report users.
Management accountants’ engagement in legitimizing the status of
ab socially responsible company stems from the need for ab comprehensive
perception of the company’s economic and socially responsible goals.

5. Conclusions
Social aspects in accounting research result from the search of legitimacy
of ab socially responsible business. The division of legitimacy into internal
and external, presented in this paper, makes it possible to perceive the role
of sustainable management accounting as abtool of legitimacy. SMA allows
absocially responsible enterprise to manage strategic legitimacy, empowering
it to act on the basis of harmonization of economic, social, environmental
and cultural goals adopted in the corporate social responsibility strategy.
SMA ensures the transparency of the accounting system data related to
CSR and thus increases the credibility of CSR reports for external and
internal stakeholders.
SMA belongs to the internal dimensions of social accountability, related
to the resource management in absocially responsible enterprise. Therefore,
SMA is complementary to the external dimension of social responsibility
accounting, related to the reporting of results to the external auditorium.
Both dimensions, complementing each other, serve the primary purpose of
social responsibility accounting by forming the appropriate basis for CSR
enforcement based on internal and external accountability.
The growing need to legitimize the socially responsible corporate status
requires further in-depth scientific research which will create abtheoretical
framework for integrating multidimensional financial and non-financial data,

Problemy ZarzÈdzania vol. 16, nr 1 (72), cz. 1, 2018 201

 Beata Zyznarska-Dworczak

measuring the socio-economic potential of absocially responsible company,

and using the results in management decision-making and communication
with stakeholders. These are the key determinants of the effective use of
SMA as ab tool of legitimacy.

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