Is It Possible to Monetarily Quantify the Emotional Value Transferred by Companies and Organizations? An Emotional Accounting Proposal

Social accounting focuses on value transactions between organizations and their stakeholders; both market ones, where the value perceived by the different stakeholders is identified, and non-markets ones, where transactions are monetized at their fair value. There was long awareness of an emotional value translation, linked to the transfer of different products, services, remunerations, and incentives, regardless of whether they were market or non-market. Yet that emotional value seemed to be anchored in the field of psychology and managed to elude economic science. This study seeks to identify emotional value with consumer surplus and, by extension, of the other stakeholders in a value transfer process. This proposal allows the emotional value to be anchored in the micro-economy and allows it to be objectively calculated using a regression involving three elements: the market price, the fair value interval, and a perceived satisfaction score by the different stakeholders in the form of significant sampling. The result obtained not only allows Social Accounting to be complemented with emotional value, but it also facilitates its incorporation in the strategy to optimize the emotional value. Furthermore, it enables a quantification of the perceived subjective utility, which opens up a research path where some possible lines are clearly identified.

Research Methods and Methodologies Used in Studies on Social Accounting

Accounting as a social science considers an objective and subjective reality that must be seen and understood under the institutional context where it is developed. Thus, this chapter discusses the roles and effects of the paradigms in accounting research, in general, and social accounting research, in particular, aiming to know and understand the research lines that better define a theoretical scope of analysis for the social accounting practice. This research tries to better fit the answers to some questions about social accounting. The results argue for the importance of keeping a theoretical paradigm alive in order to foster multidimensional openness and true scholarship in accounting research and application. A multi-disciplinary appreciation with different perspectives will enrich the research in social accounting.

“Fumifugium: Or the inconvenience of the Aer and Smoake of London Dissipated”: emancipatory social accounting in 17th century London

PurposeThis paper extends the nature and relevance of exploring the historical roots of social and environmental accounting by investigating an account that recorded and made visible pollution in 17th century London. John Evelyn's Fumifugium (1661) is characterised as an external social account that bears resemblance to contemporary external accounting particularly given its problematising intentionality.Design/methodology/approachAn interpretive content analysis of the text draws out the themes and features of social accounting. Emancipatory accounting theory is the theoretical lens through which Evelyn's social account is interpreted, applying a microhistory research approach. We interpret Fumifugium as a social account with reference to the context of the reporting accountant.FindingsIn this early example of a stakeholder “giving an account” rather than an “account rendered” by an entity, Evelyn problematises industrial pollution and its impacts with the stated intention of changing industrial practices. We find that Fumifugium was used in challenging, resisting and seeking to solve an environmental problem by highlighting the adverse consequences to those in power and rendering new solutions thinkable.Originality/valueThis is the first research paper to extend investigations of the historical roots of social and environmental accounting into the 17th century. It also extends research investigating alternative forms of account by focusing on a report produced by an interested party and includes a novel use of the emancipatory accounting theoretical lens to investigate this historic report. Fumifugium challenged the lack of accountability of businesses in ways similar to present-day campaigns to address the overwhelming challenge of climate change.

Accounting for apocalypse: Re-thinking social accounting theory and practice for our time of social crises and ecological collapse

<p>Indicators show that we live in a time of unprecedented global crises. Violence and abuse are epidemic, social inequalities are increasing, the global socioeconomic system is locked on a path of ecocidal growth, and a climate catastrophe looms. These patterns indicate that our social systems are failing and require radical change. However, most social accounting research (“SAR”) and practice, in line with most of the wider fields of accounting research and practice, have ignored or underplayed these grave realities and have failed to analyse critically the systems of power from which these crises have arisen. And critical scholars have shown that this unreflective lack of critique is due in part to social accounting research and practice being inadvertently “captured” by hegemonic discourses and theories that serve as ideological props for existing systems of power. This thesis explores how SAR and practice could be re-oriented so as to be more effective in addressing the social and ecological crises we face today, first, by making use of a range of critical social theories to examine how social accounting research and practice might be “captured” and become complicit in perpetuating these crises, and secondly, by using ideas from Paulo Freire’s radical pedagogy to explore how they could more honestly confront these realities. The empirical centrepiece of the analysis is the Building Capacity for Sustainable Development (“BCSD”) project’s National Sustainability Scenarios initiative – a social accounting case study which forms part of this PhD – and it is extended to an interrogation of dialogic SAR and SAR more broadly. The contributions of this thesis are four-fold: methodologically, it offers analytical heuristics for making sense of social accounting research and practice as hegemonically structured and ideologically-laden fields that are directly implicated in perpetuating social-ecological crises, and for evaluating engagement practices from a critical pedagogical standpoint; empirically, this thesis evaluates a case study using a social accounting technology – scenario planning – that to date is under-researched; in terms of analysis, it builds on earlier critiques of social accounting “capture” by extending it to “critical” forms of SAR and interrogates this “capture” in relation to systems of power such as capitalism, industrial civilization, white supremacy and patriarchy that tend mostly to be overlooked in the literature, both singularly and as intersecting systems; and in terms of reconstructive exploration, this thesis offers insights on how social accounting research and practice might look if driven by the critical pedagogical imperatives of truth-telling – that is, facing rather than evading the realities of systemic violence and structural power that we are confronted with today. Although SAR is broadly concerned about social justice and ecological sustainability, this thesis shows that much of it legitimates the intersecting systems of predatory capitalism, white supremacy, and patriarchy and downplays the realities of imperialism, colonization, class warfare, patriarchal violence, and ecocide that these systems of power produce. Moreover, and perhaps more problematically, although the BCSD case study, and the dialogic SAR literature which was considered, appeared to be underpinned by many of the ethical principles of critical pedagogy, deeper analysis revealed that they too align more closely with an uncritical liberalism, rather than critical pedagogy, in their unwillingness to challenge the social hierarchies and ongoing realities of imperialism, colonization, and catastrophic violence to which they give rise. A reconstruction of the initiative, drawn from more radical interpretations of Freire’s approach, suggests that more critical approaches to social accounting and engagement praxis are possible, although not without challenges because they would require that social accounting scholars privilege the intellectual and moral values of truth and justice over those of privilege and power.</p>

Accounting for apocalypse: Re-thinking social accounting theory and practice for our time of social crises and ecological collapse

<p>Indicators show that we live in a time of unprecedented global crises. Violence and abuse are epidemic, social inequalities are increasing, the global socioeconomic system is locked on a path of ecocidal growth, and a climate catastrophe looms. These patterns indicate that our social systems are failing and require radical change. However, most social accounting research (“SAR”) and practice, in line with most of the wider fields of accounting research and practice, have ignored or underplayed these grave realities and have failed to analyse critically the systems of power from which these crises have arisen. And critical scholars have shown that this unreflective lack of critique is due in part to social accounting research and practice being inadvertently “captured” by hegemonic discourses and theories that serve as ideological props for existing systems of power. This thesis explores how SAR and practice could be re-oriented so as to be more effective in addressing the social and ecological crises we face today, first, by making use of a range of critical social theories to examine how social accounting research and practice might be “captured” and become complicit in perpetuating these crises, and secondly, by using ideas from Paulo Freire’s radical pedagogy to explore how they could more honestly confront these realities. The empirical centrepiece of the analysis is the Building Capacity for Sustainable Development (“BCSD”) project’s National Sustainability Scenarios initiative – a social accounting case study which forms part of this PhD – and it is extended to an interrogation of dialogic SAR and SAR more broadly. The contributions of this thesis are four-fold: methodologically, it offers analytical heuristics for making sense of social accounting research and practice as hegemonically structured and ideologically-laden fields that are directly implicated in perpetuating social-ecological crises, and for evaluating engagement practices from a critical pedagogical standpoint; empirically, this thesis evaluates a case study using a social accounting technology – scenario planning – that to date is under-researched; in terms of analysis, it builds on earlier critiques of social accounting “capture” by extending it to “critical” forms of SAR and interrogates this “capture” in relation to systems of power such as capitalism, industrial civilization, white supremacy and patriarchy that tend mostly to be overlooked in the literature, both singularly and as intersecting systems; and in terms of reconstructive exploration, this thesis offers insights on how social accounting research and practice might look if driven by the critical pedagogical imperatives of truth-telling – that is, facing rather than evading the realities of systemic violence and structural power that we are confronted with today. Although SAR is broadly concerned about social justice and ecological sustainability, this thesis shows that much of it legitimates the intersecting systems of predatory capitalism, white supremacy, and patriarchy and downplays the realities of imperialism, colonization, class warfare, patriarchal violence, and ecocide that these systems of power produce. Moreover, and perhaps more problematically, although the BCSD case study, and the dialogic SAR literature which was considered, appeared to be underpinned by many of the ethical principles of critical pedagogy, deeper analysis revealed that they too align more closely with an uncritical liberalism, rather than critical pedagogy, in their unwillingness to challenge the social hierarchies and ongoing realities of imperialism, colonization, and catastrophic violence to which they give rise. A reconstruction of the initiative, drawn from more radical interpretations of Freire’s approach, suggests that more critical approaches to social accounting and engagement praxis are possible, although not without challenges because they would require that social accounting scholars privilege the intellectual and moral values of truth and justice over those of privilege and power.</p>

Social Accounting and Organisational Change: An Exploration of the Sustainability Assessment Model

<p>There is increasing recognition that social and ecological challenges necessitate societal change. In responding to these challenges a number of tools have been mooted as having the potential to facilitate change at the organisational level. Accounting is one such tool which is implicated in changing the mental models of those making decisions in organisations (Bebbington, 2007a). However, the role that accounting performs is uncertain and calls have been made to extend our understanding by exploring further empirical cases (Bebbington, 2007a, 2007b; Bebbington, Brown and Frame, 2007a; Bebbington, Brown, Frame and Thomson, 2007b; Tilt, 2006) in a way which can make explicit a priori assumptions of change (Broadbent and Laughlin, 2005). Experimenting with social accounting technologies may provide greater insight into their limiting and enabling aspects. Examples of such technologies include full cost accounting (FCA), the sustainable cost calculation (SCC) and, most recently, the sustainable assessment model (SAM). The SAM is an accounting technology developed to incorporate sustainability considerations into organisational decisionmaking and, potentially, accountability processes. In constructing and implementing new accounting technologies such as the SAM, researchers are confronted with two key challenges: first, a lack of empirical exploration within field studies means the impact a new technology may have is not well documented (Gray, 2002); second, the extant theorisation with which to evaluate 'successful' implementations remains underdeveloped (Gray, 2002). For example, use of non-explicit evaluative criteria glosses over the necessary aspects by which people can facilitate and evaluate change (Thomson and Bebbington, 2004, 2005; Dillard, 2007). This thesis explores the potential of the SAM to foster more critically reflective organisational accounts in the pursuit of sustainability, and involved the application of the SAM in two New Zealand case-study sites. In total, forty-seven individual and group semi-structured interviews were conducted over a three-year period. The resulting empirics provided the basis of an organisational narrative, structured according to Laughlin's (1991) organisational change framework, and evaluated using a Freirian heuristic. Laughlin (1991) provides a framework that sensitises the researcher to identify facets of change considered salient in the application of the SAM. His framework provides a structure for the organisational narrative (that is, both a 'technical' account on how the SAM was applied and a descriptive account on what specific change may have occurred in the organisation). However, drawing on Laughlin's (1991) framework presented two key challenges: first, the SAM requires a critical evaluation framework that makes explicit a priori assumptions of change that are not evident using Laughlin's (1991) 'real' and 'superficial' change categorisation; second, the skeletal nature of the framework focuses insufficient attention on how change occurs (Laughlin, 1991, p.229). To address the above challenges and to evaluate the effectiveness of the SAM, a Freirian dialogic heuristic framework (DHF) is applied to the organisational narrative. The human agency focus of Freire's work makes the evaluative framework complementary to Laughlin's (1991) framework by providing greater insight into how change occurs. To date, the application of a Freirian lens in social accounting literature has been restricted to papers theorising the engagement of the SAM (Bebbington et al., 2007b), generic samples of social accounting reports (Thomson and Bebbington, 2005), accounting education (Coulson and Thomson, 2006; Thomson and Bebbington, 2004), and calls to extend stakeholder engagement (O'Dwyer, 2004a). In this thesis the SAM is explored in an empirical organisational setting and evaluated using the DHF. Findings indicate that the SAM did promote more critically reflective organisational accounts. The SAM created a space which amplified the agency of operational managers and researchers to challenge dominant organisational beliefs held typically by senior staff. Beliefs, such as the organisational commitment to sustainability, were exposed, interrogated, and challenged. The process of applying the SAM fostered the problematisation of organisational issues, broadened the perspectives of participants involved in decision-making, and challenged existing notions of who might have legitimate, 'expert' knowledge. It also made visible differences among viewpoints, highlighted the socially constructed nature of accounting technologies, made visible the interrelationships among different elements in an account, and changed project decisions. However, on several occasions the use of SAM was challenged and in one instance resulted in termination of the SAM application. Findings from this thesis contribute to social accounting and organisational change literature by exploring one form of engagement and extending organisational change frameworks. These two contributions provide possibilities for future research and have implications for those involved in policy and practice.</p>

Effect of Personal Characteristics on Social Accounting Initiatives: Evidence from Pakistan

The research works with two separate but closely connected themes of individual employee behaviour and organisation-wide initiatives that are further broken down into two dimensions of Social Entrepreneurship Profile and Social Accounting (SA). This research study seeks to identify the social entrepreneurship profile that highlights the specific personal characteristics of employees working in an organisation; secondly, it attempts to understand how the broader initiatives that help today’s organisations become more socially responsible. Factors covered in Personal Characteristics included 1. Sociality, 2. Innovativeness, 3. Market-orientation, and 4. The ability of Identifying New Opportunities (INO). Social Accounting Initiatives included Internal Attitude (IA), and Subjective norms (SN), each is classified as1.Pragmatic, 2. Moral, and 3. Cognitive, as well as Perceived Behavioural Control (PBC). For this purpose, A survey was conducted of 75 firms, and their decision-makers 306. were surveyed about their characteristics as well as the social accounting initiatives in their firms, usinga close-ended questionnaire. Total of306 decision-makers was surveyedabout four employees per organisation. Dataset was analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis and structured equation modelling. The results suggested that innovativenessand INO seem to have a positive and significant impact on pragmatic and moralIA. As well as moral SN. Similarly, sociality and innovativeness positively affecting moral IA. Sociality also seems to be affecting moral IA, pragmatic SN, and PBC, however, it has a negative impact on cognitive SN. Market orientation also has a significant positive impact on cognitive IA and SN. Lastly, INO seems to affect Perceived Behavioural Control. Implications and limitations of the study are discussed.