Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to enrich extant understanding of the role of both agency and context in the uptake of sustainability assurance. To this end, the authors examine auditors' attempts to promote sustainability assurance and establish it as a practice requiring the...

Purpose: This is a reply to the commentaries by Baxter and Chua (2020) and Andrew and Baker (2020) on a paper previously published in this journal. Design/methodology/approach: This is a conceptual discussion that further clarifies the differences between critical realism (CR), actor–network...

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to contrast actor-network theory (ANT) and critical realism (CR) as two contemporary approaches to critical accounting research and advance a critique centred on the neglect of social structures in the former perspective. Design/methodology/approach: This...

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to advance a critical realist perspective on performativity and use it to examine how novel conceptions of corporate social responsibility (CSR) have performative effects. Design/methodology/approach: To illustrate how the authors’ critical realist...

Purpose: This paper reviews and reflects on institutional research on performance measurement and management (PMM) in the public sector emerging over the past decade and discusses potential extensions of this body of research. Design/methodology/approach: The paper takes the form of a...