ABSTRACT
In recent decades, the issues of effective and failed corporate governance have increasingly attracted the attention of corporate and accounting policy makers, legislators, regulators, the accounting profession, researchers and the media (Harford, Sattar, & Maxwell, 2012; Heracleous, 2001). In accounting, such concerns have focused upon aspects of fi nancial reporting, audit committee roles, earnings manipulation, accounting information quality, investor protection, fi nancial and stock price performance (Beasley, Carcello, Hermanson, & Lapides, 2000; Eng & Mak, 2003; Parker, 2007a). In contrast, the pivotal governance issues of boardroom decision-making, governance, control and accountability have been relatively neglected by the accounting literature. This chapter addresses these issues at the highest organizational level, contending that accounting and accountability research literature has largely ignored corporate governance and accountability processes inside the boardroom level of organizational leadership. Accounting information and external market reactions to accounting disclosures are not the sole, or even most critical, keys to stakeholders achieving more effective corporate governance. They arguably constitute post-event refl ections of decisions often made within the boardroom. For a more comprehensive and early interventionist approach to enhancing corporate governance, accounting researchers need to address the context, relationships, decisions and actions at the top level of the organizational hierarchy, and it is this level that is addressed by this chapter. Furthermore, this chapter focuses upon the issues of board-level strategising, control and accountability in the nonprofi t sector, which in recent decades has grown signifi cantly in size and social and economic impact, particularly as it has increasingly taken on social, educational, health and welfare delivery roles formerly directly delivered by governments.
