ABSTRACT:  A commitment to environmental, economic and social sustainability is no longer sufficient. In order to best achieve strategic objectives, including improving relations with stakeholders, companies must necessarily be able to report and communicate this commitment. From this perspective, acquiring skills and training in new techniques, methods and tools for effective sustainability reporting and communication becomes essential. This study aimed to advance research into corporate sustainability reporting and communication by considering the potential use of Industry 4.0 technologies for this purpose. A case study was conducted to verify the use of such technologies in sustainability reporting and disclosure and to identify the specific technologies employed for these activities. A semi-structured interview was conducted with representatives of an Italian company operating in the information technology sector using the focus group methodology. In addition, administering a questionnaire to employees of the sampled company, information was obtained regarding the level of use of enabling technologies in sustainability reporting and disclosure, the most widely used technologies, the potential of I4.0 technologies in sustainability reporting, and possible drivers and barriers to their use for these purpose. The results reveal that the sample company has widely adopted Industry 4.0 technologies, as they are considered useful for supporting sustainability engagement and suitable for implementing sustainability reporting and disclosure processes. The results also revealed that artificial intelligence and blockchain were the most widely used technologies. While this remains an exploratory study, it could inform further research into the potential of Industry 4.0 technologies in corporate sustainability reporting and disclosure. KEYWORDS: sustainability reporting, sustainability disclosure, Industry 4.0 technologies, case study.

ABSTRACT:  Management accountants (MAs) traditionally serve as specialized support for information provision, building relationships with top management, operational managers, and staff functions, including HR and IT. The spread of Business Intelligence & Analytics (BI&A) systems, which collect, organize, and analyze data to support decision-making, has the potential to significantly influence MAs’ work, their interactions with other organizational actors, and, ultimately, their organizational relevance. While prior research has examined how BI&A reshapes MAs’ tasks and competencies, few empirical studies have explored how these technologies reconfigure MAs’ relationships with key stakeholders and how such changes affect the importance and the recognition of the management accounting function. This paper addresses this gap by investigating whether and how BI&A reshapes the management accounting function’s organizational relevance. Drawing on a single in-depth case study of a medium-sized Italian company that has adopted BI&A for decision support purposes since 2020, the study analyzes how MAs’ interactions with operational managers, top management, and the IT function have evolved. Our findings reveal that, rather than diminishing MAs’ importance, BI&A has repositioned them as decision enablers, hybrid figures that bridge the business and technical domains, and strategic partners. These transformations elevate MAs’ recognition and centrality, suggesting that BI&A has the potential to reinforce, rather than erode, the management accounting function’s organizational standing. KEYWORDS: Business Intelligence and Analytics, Management Accountants, Organizational Relevance, Digital Transformation, Case Study.

ABSTRACT: The pursuit of sustainable development has become an essential direction for every type of economic activity. The respect of the Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) principles is most common way to adopt consistent choices and behaviours. To demonstrate progress in these three dimensions, larger companies are required to disclose appropriate documents to be assessed by external stakeholders. About sustainability, credit intermediaries play a leading role. They can contribute either directly, by changing the purpose and destination of their investments, or indirectly through lending activity, requiring a verification of the creditworthiness of credit applicants also from the sustainability side. This paper evaluates the quality of ESG disclosure of listed domestic banks by examining their reports and comparing them with the guidelines of Integrated Report (IR); the latest development of a long series of the proposals that have attempted to reform financial accounting and corporate reporting. The investigation shows banks have a good quality level of non-financial disclosure, although not all the objectives set by the promoters of the IR have yet been achieved, for instance slim reports, easily accessible to a wide audience of stakeholders and readily comparable in time and space. Furthermore, in value generation, the linkages between economic and sustainability performances are not yet enough clear. KEYWORDS:ESG, integrated report, sustainable development, banking sector.