This study examines the relationships between sustainability technologies, auditor transition, and circular economy models. Circular economy (CE) has been visited in recent studies as a matter of necessity to procure answers to pressing issues that befalls our society, aimed at the survival of the human species. While doing so, there has been little emphasis placed on sustainable technologies that will usher auditors into the new era. Data were constructed from a symposium organized by the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA), where scholars and practitioners addressed the future of auditing technology, regarding, in particular, the International Social and Environmental Accreditation and Labeling (ISEAL) database official website and also interviews with experts dealing day to day with sustainability and circular economy. Discourse analysis assisted in working with these groups of data. Our findings identified 12 different relational types in our analysis, thus signaling upward trends in the preparedness of auditors in boosting sustainable technologies towards a circular economy environment. Additionally, our findings demonstrate the significant uptake of innovative tools implemented for new-generation technologies in order to enhance auditing. The findings of this study have implications for academia and practice which are aimed at technological preparedness for the transition of auditing towards CE. Finally, this paper contributes by summarizing the debate and speculations around the technologies that are driving auditing to CE.

This paper investigates the connection of internal control environment to sustainable development goals to curb fraud in Brazil. We drew on the interpretivist and constructivist perspectives with discourse analysis. Data corpus consists of interviews of 20 respondents who are external auditors, internal auditors, and employees of the controller’s department of an organization of ecommerce and archival documents. Results did not find any significant relationship between the connection of internal control functions (ICF) and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) inasmuch as the connection of ICF to efficiency is tied to policies in compliance with standards, management tone, roles of enforcement, accountability, and adherence and obedience of rules. Triangulating SDG-16 with the dimensions of the control environment, fraud manifests mainly as a result of lack of commitment to integrity and values, as well as ineffectiveness of monitoring functions. This study concludes for the building of effective, accountable and even institutions with the embedding monitoring functions to sustain development goals. Since ex ante literatures examined the conceptual framework in isolation, this study connects it to sustainable development goals. Finally, this study signals an implication in the internal control literature as it clarifies the scientific theories and practical baseline of internal control environment to the policymakers, practitioners, and academia in view of the way forward on the connection of ICF to the SDG in the fight against corporate frauds.

This research explores students’ skillset development with the introduction of a gamified discipline in an Accounting undergraduate program. We conducted a survey with 118 accounting students enrolled on the last semester from a large public University in Brazil. Using a quantitative approach, the research results indicate that students consider that many skills have been developed during the gamified discipline, such as: curiosity, leadership, initiative, persistence, adaptability, collaboration and critical thinking. The familiarity with tools used in the online game context and the perception of usability of the software used for this gamification experience were positively and significant correlated with the perception of the development of these skills. Despite these positive finds, some students did not like the excess of competition in the course and the random process of the software. These findings contribute to the academic literature and to educators who are interested in introducing gamified strategies in the classroom.

Linking decision systems, negotiating agents, management accounting, and computational accounting, this paper aims at exploring dynamic pricing strategies of a synthetic business-to-consumer online operation and a comparative analysis of evolving strategy-specific pricing optimization. Five price models based on market, utility, or demand information (three single and two combined), merging online and offline data, are explored over a seven-day period and with twenty selected products. A total of 17,529 website visits and 538 agent negotiations are studied (94,607 main data points) using a Python solution, with model simulation parameters and assumptions described. Findings show the combined market-utility-demand performance of dynamic pricing to be superior as an input to the negotiating agent. Contributions are threefold, pointing to (a) management accounting practice and research (dynamic pricing), (b) science and research strategy (method), and (c) accounting education (skill set).

This paper examines the role of connectors in a fraud and corruption-prone environment of the circular economy. A qualitative approach and critical perspective were adopted. In the same line of thought, this study drew on narratives of fraud experiences from the Criminalistica Symposium between 2017 and 2022, as well as interviews with forensic accountants, auditing experts, and police investigators, to foment discourse analysis derived from Machiavellian theory. Thematic coding was selected for the presentation of results. Our findings lead us to the conclusion that there are five identified connector roles in an organization. The connectors have the role of mainly influencing acts of corporate fraud and corruption, which have the characteristics of a double-edged sword. Connectors serve as team motivators and sometimes as manipulators, and they also have the role of spearheading negotiations in tumultuous times of employee disorder and employers’ disagreements, almost leading to uneasy truces. Additionally, in a bid to perpetrate fraud, the connector assists in the role of overriding controls. Inasmuch as it bears the trait of acting as an agent of knowledge building by facilitating learning and communication in organizations in a CE environment, this study contributes to the literature showing various roles of connectors in fraud schemes. Finally, bearing the originality, understanding the role of connectors in circular economy fraud and corruption schemes clarifies our path to expected wellbeing in the concept of sustainability in our ways of life in the coming decades attuned to policymakers and regulators.