Ms Linda A Lewis B.A., M.Phil. (Huddersfield)
Associate Dean for Learning and Teaching
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| Room: | C066 Sheffield University Management School Conduit Road, Sheffield S10 1FL |
| Phone: | +44 (0)114 222 3428 |
| Fax: | +44 (0)114 222 3348 |
| Email: | l.a.lewis@shef.ac.uk |
Linda has taught on a wide range of undergraduate and postgraduate courses, both at Sheffield and in previous posts at the Universities of Huddersfield and Manchester. Her current teaching involves lecturing in financial accounting and management accounting to undergraduate students. In addition, Linda is Director of Undergraduate Programmes within the Management School and Moderator for Undergraduate Programmes for the School of Business Administration at City College, Thessaloniki, Northern Greece, which is an institution affiliated with the University of Sheffield.
As a former QAA reviewer, Linda is interested in developments in undergraduate teaching and curricula. Within the School she is working on a CILASS project integrating and embedding enguiry-based learning into group work within the curriculum.
Research Interests
Linda´s research interests are in the area of accounting for sustainable development from the perspective of social and environmental accounting, environmental management and environmental management accounting.
Social and environmental accounting:
Linda's research undertaken to date has developed from a theoretical underpinning of accountability and social responsibility to the extent that organisations be encouraged to consider and report on the social and environmental impact of their activities. Linda´s early research looked into the role of accounting and ethical investment (now more commonly referred to as socially responsible investment) as well as ethical and moral reasoning for understanding and explaining developments in corporate social reporting.
Social and environmental accounting education:
Accounting is believed to both influence and reflect changing attitudes towards sustainability as it embraces social, environmental and economic issues. Based on a belief that this requires a need to change views of what accounting does and can achieve, a part of Linda´s work has also focused on social and environmental accounting education. In this respect, a survey of social and environmental accounting conducted in UK universities has been significant. The research has encouraged further work to be conducted and replications of the study have been undertaken. It also led to further work funded by one of the professional accountancy bodies for incorporation in the professional training of accountants in practice.
Environmental management accounting:
Linda´s work has subsequently developed into investigating ways in which organisations incorporate social and environmental issues in management decision making, planning and control and make progress towards sustainable development. Apart from investigating environmental management systems and their audit, more recently this involves the development of environmental management accounting tools and techniques. Substantial funding for such work has been provided by the EPSRC as a result of interdisciplinary projects with the Department of Civil Engineering. This work complements earlier research undertaken on behalf of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants investigating the relationship between management accounting and financial reporting and the changing role of management accounting. Management accounting is an important element of organisational actions for achieving sustainable development. It enables management to ensure that economic objectives are maintained whilst allowing organisations to pay attention to social and environmental issues.
Regulatory frameworks:
The funded EPSRC projects have developed Linda´s work into investigating the impact of the regulatory and institutional frameworks on organisational practices towards sustainable development in the UK water industry and the power and influence of stakeholders within those frameworks; regulatory accounting requirements; and the development of alternative accounting technologies such as whole life costing for optimising investment in asset infrastructure.
The role of stakeholder management:
Linda´s current EPSRC grants are providing further research into applications of whole-life costing and the significance of stakeholders in the successful implementation of new developments (for sustainability) in water cycle management. Work in the future will use stakeholders as a useful means of identifying and measuring the social, environmental and economic impacts of local, national or corporate activities as an input to decision-making. From this it is hoped that the work will provide a further basis for accounting for, and reporting on, sustainable development.
Linda has successfully supervised a number of doctoral students in the areas outlined above and is currently supervising PhD students investigating stakeholder management in progressing sustainable development projects and structural or operational changes that might result from the adoption and embedding of sustainable development within organisations.