Risk management, corporate governance and management accounting: Emerging interdependencies

Risk management and corporate governance issues are today significantly influencing public policy debates on enterprise controls. Organisational and management practices including management accounting activities are also being extensively affected. This editorial provides an introduction to the special issue of the journal on "Risk Management, Corporate Governance and Management Accounting". It argues that, like management accounting, the potential of risk and governance concepts to be made managerially actionable rests on their capacity to be interpreted in technical, analytical and calculable terms. It is these dimensions also which lend risk and governance concerns prescriptive appeal that is continually being reassessed in the light of economic changes. The argument is further made that enterprises seek not only to adopt risk controls but also to make the deployment of such controls transparent and visible to engender greater organisational legitimacy. This makes management accounting, risk management and corporate governance increasingly and inextricably interdependent. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.