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.