Assessing the Potential for Agonistic Engagement Among Accountants: A quasi-experimental repeated Q study of social and environmental reporting

<p>A number of writers have recently criticised a perceived narrowness in accountants’ understanding of their profession. In particular, they claim that the predominant focus on shareholders and capital markets may be at the expense of wider public interests that accounting should serve. As accountants engage increasingly with a variety of complex and politically contentious issues, there is cause for concern regarding their capacity to represent and engage with non-financial interests. Some of these concerns are reflected in ongoing debates regarding social and environmental reporting (SER). Accountants are important players in the SER field. They have high-profile roles as self-proclaimed ‘thought leaders’ in areas such as sustainability and integrated reporting, and are increasingly involved in developing SER concepts and practices, discussion papers and best practice guidance. These technologies increasingly rely on, and are legitimised by, their incorporation of a plurality of perspectives. However, both academics and civil society groups have raised concerns that professional accounting bodies are too closely aligned with business interests, and prioritise ‘business case’ (BC) understandings of concepts such as SER, which favour shareholder-oriented perspectives. As in other areas of policy controversy, the capacity to engage with a plurality of perspectives is important because of its impact on, inter alia, the issues that are recognised, how problems are conceived and responded to, and which or whose perspectives are prioritised. While prior research has explored management and stakeholder perspectives, there has been very little research to date on accountants’ perspectives on SER. Relatedly, relatively little is known about accountants’ abilities to incorporate a multiplicity of views when attempting to engage with complex issues. This study seeks to fill this gap. My research was designed as a quasi-experimental investigation that uses Constructive Conflict Methodology (CCM) and Q methodology (QM) to examine divergent perspectives of SER among three groups of accountants: academics, practitioners, and students. In particular, my research explores the use of CCM as a framework, which when implemented via QM, can help operationalise the theoretical developments of an agonistic approach to critical dialogic accounting (CDA). Drawing on applications of CCM and QM in political theory and policy analysis, my research design is divided into two distinct phases. Phase One focuses on identifying and understanding the range of perspectives among participants regarding SER. Informed by this understanding, Phase Two develops a workshop, the SER Dialogue, to bring together participants who are representative of the diverse perspectives identified. In Phase One, 34 participants’ perspectives of SER were explored through a mix of semi-structured interviews, questionnaires and QM. The participants evidenced a range of diverse understandings of SER, with three general approaches identified from participants’ Q data: the Critical (F1(CR)), Business Case (F2(BC)) and Incremental Change (F3(INC)) approaches. These general categorisations helped identify differences, inconsistencies and contradictions in the participants’ ideological orientations and illustrated the contested discursive landscape within which SER is conceptualised. Participants’ alignment with each general category also identified possible constraints in their capacity to recognise and understand divergent perspectives. Informed by these insights, Phase Two focused on developing a discursive space for agonistic pluralist engagement (the SER Dialogue) with a group of participants, representing the three diverse perspectives. Ultimately, these participants had both a larger number and magnitude of shifts in their perspective of SER compared to a control group. There was also a general increase in alignment with F1(CR), with many participants demonstrating the development of critically pluralist and reflexive understandings. These findings illustrate the potential for agonistic pluralist engagement to develop accountants’ capacity for pluralist engagement with perspectives surrounding complex and politically contentious issues, while also enabling resistance to the hegemony of BC perspectives within the field of accounting.</p>

Assessing the Potential for Agonistic Engagement Among Accountants: A quasi-experimental repeated Q study of social and environmental reporting

<p>A number of writers have recently criticised a perceived narrowness in accountants’ understanding of their profession. In particular, they claim that the predominant focus on shareholders and capital markets may be at the expense of wider public interests that accounting should serve. As accountants engage increasingly with a variety of complex and politically contentious issues, there is cause for concern regarding their capacity to represent and engage with non-financial interests. Some of these concerns are reflected in ongoing debates regarding social and environmental reporting (SER). Accountants are important players in the SER field. They have high-profile roles as self-proclaimed ‘thought leaders’ in areas such as sustainability and integrated reporting, and are increasingly involved in developing SER concepts and practices, discussion papers and best practice guidance. These technologies increasingly rely on, and are legitimised by, their incorporation of a plurality of perspectives. However, both academics and civil society groups have raised concerns that professional accounting bodies are too closely aligned with business interests, and prioritise ‘business case’ (BC) understandings of concepts such as SER, which favour shareholder-oriented perspectives. As in other areas of policy controversy, the capacity to engage with a plurality of perspectives is important because of its impact on, inter alia, the issues that are recognised, how problems are conceived and responded to, and which or whose perspectives are prioritised. While prior research has explored management and stakeholder perspectives, there has been very little research to date on accountants’ perspectives on SER. Relatedly, relatively little is known about accountants’ abilities to incorporate a multiplicity of views when attempting to engage with complex issues. This study seeks to fill this gap. My research was designed as a quasi-experimental investigation that uses Constructive Conflict Methodology (CCM) and Q methodology (QM) to examine divergent perspectives of SER among three groups of accountants: academics, practitioners, and students. In particular, my research explores the use of CCM as a framework, which when implemented via QM, can help operationalise the theoretical developments of an agonistic approach to critical dialogic accounting (CDA). Drawing on applications of CCM and QM in political theory and policy analysis, my research design is divided into two distinct phases. Phase One focuses on identifying and understanding the range of perspectives among participants regarding SER. Informed by this understanding, Phase Two develops a workshop, the SER Dialogue, to bring together participants who are representative of the diverse perspectives identified. In Phase One, 34 participants’ perspectives of SER were explored through a mix of semi-structured interviews, questionnaires and QM. The participants evidenced a range of diverse understandings of SER, with three general approaches identified from participants’ Q data: the Critical (F1(CR)), Business Case (F2(BC)) and Incremental Change (F3(INC)) approaches. These general categorisations helped identify differences, inconsistencies and contradictions in the participants’ ideological orientations and illustrated the contested discursive landscape within which SER is conceptualised. Participants’ alignment with each general category also identified possible constraints in their capacity to recognise and understand divergent perspectives. Informed by these insights, Phase Two focused on developing a discursive space for agonistic pluralist engagement (the SER Dialogue) with a group of participants, representing the three diverse perspectives. Ultimately, these participants had both a larger number and magnitude of shifts in their perspective of SER compared to a control group. There was also a general increase in alignment with F1(CR), with many participants demonstrating the development of critically pluralist and reflexive understandings. These findings illustrate the potential for agonistic pluralist engagement to develop accountants’ capacity for pluralist engagement with perspectives surrounding complex and politically contentious issues, while also enabling resistance to the hegemony of BC perspectives within the field of accounting.</p>

The past is never dead: the role of imprints in shaping social and environmental reporting in a post-communist context

PurposeMobilizing a theoretical framework combining institutional logics and “imprinting” lenses, this paper provides an in-depth contextualized analysis of how historical imprints affect social and environmental reporting (SER) practices in Romania, a post-communist country in Eastern Europe.Design/methodology/approachThe authors conduct a qualitative field study with a diverse dataset including regulations, publicly available reports and interviews with multiple actors involved in the SER field in Romania. The authors follow a reflexive approach in constructing the narratives by mobilizing their personal experience and understanding of the field to analyze the rich empirical material.FindingsThe authors identify a blend of logics that combine local and Western conceptualizations of business responsibilities and explain how the transition from a communist ideology to the free market economy affected SER practices in Romania. The authors also highlight four major imprints and document their longitudinal development, evidencing three main patterns: persistence, transformation and decay. The authors find that the deep connections that form between logics and imprints explain the cohabitation of logics rather than their straight replacement.Originality/valueThe paper contributes by evidencing the role of imprints' dynamics in the institutionalization of SER logics. The authors claim that the persistence (decay) of imprints from a former regime such as communism hinders (facilitates) the institutionalization of Western SER logics. Transformation instead has more uncertain effects. The pattern that an imprint takes hinges upon its usefulness for business interests.

Institutional shareholding and corporate social responsibility reporting: evidence from Bangladesh

Purpose This study aims to examine the influence of institutional shareholding on a firm’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices in Bangladesh. Design/methodology/approach This study uses a content analysis to capture a firm’s CSR practices, based on various attributes of social and environmental reporting made by the firm. Based on these attributes, a corporate social responsibility reporting index (CSRI) is constructed. To examine the causal relationship between institutional shareholding and firm CSR practices, this study uses a simultaneous equations approach to control the endogeneity problem. Findings The finding of this study is that both CSR reporting and institutional shareholding negatively influence each other. Research limitations/implications This study is subject to some limitations such as the subjectivity or judgement associated in the coding process. Practical implications If the institutional investors are not concerned with its environmental and societal issues, there will be a sustainability issue for the business because companies will continue ignoring the employee health and hygiene, education, training and welfare. Their ignorance of these societal issues will lead to compromising the quality of living for important stakeholders within the society. Originality/value This study contributes the literature on CSR reporting.

Sustainability, responsibility and ethics: different concepts for a single path

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyse the concepts of sustainability, responsibility and ethics focussing on their links and differences, also to understand how companies move respectively in these field; to understand how companies sometimes move away from the basic and deep meaning of these concepts, landing in a merely utilitarian sphere of personal advantage where ethics, instead of being an irreplaceable and essential stronghold, is found to be a fiction or just an instrument. Design/methodology/approach The methodology used assumes a theoretical critical approach and, based on the vast literature on the items, is based on a conceptual analysis of the themes of sustainability, corporate social responsibility (CSR) and ethics and of the behaviour that companies can adopt in the three contexts. A critical approach to these issues and concepts can effectively help us to understand how companies are responding to external demands and to the challenges of responsibility and sustainability, which are becoming increasingly pressing. Findings Ethics, sustainability, CSR and social and environmental reporting are distinct constructs with different meanings but linked by important conceptual and operational relationships. Research limitations/implications The results of the research are the consequence of the application of a critical approach based on a theoretical analysis of the concepts under study. It would be interesting to support the results achieved with empirical research studies. Practical implications This conceptual path helps scholars and companies themselves to understand the difference between the three key concepts analysed. Only by understanding the basic meaning will it be possible to really make one’s own and pursue it in the correct way. Social implications Nowadays, the authors are overwhelmed by these three concepts which are used as synonyms and incorrectly. This leads to confusion and misunderstandings. Knowledge of the characteristics and differences between these concepts and their concrete applications is of great importance. Originality/value This study tries to provide a critical discussion of how the three concepts intersect and differentiate, leading to concrete results or results that have nothing to do with their meaning. There are no conceptual papers in the literature that deal with the three concepts and also analyse the implications on the real world.

Eksplorasi dimensi spiritual dalam praktik pelaporan akuntansi sosial dan lingkungan di Bali

Social and environmental accounting has attracted growing attention from companies in Indonesia as these companies face an increasing pressure to report their social and environmental responsibilities to the public. Despite this trend, however, Indonesia lacks a social and environmental reporting model that is relevant to its business environment, i.e., a model that incorporates the spiritual dimension, and not merely the economics, social, and environmental dimensions. The main aim of this study was to explore the spiritual dimension of the social and environmental reporting practices of a tourism company in Bali. The exploration was based on Tri Hita Karana, a local societal value held by the people of Bali. This study employed a two-phase research approach, where the first phase focused on exploring the social and environmental reporting practices of the company, while the second phase centered on refining and assessing the applicability of this reporting model in other companies. The results of this study show that the appropriate model of social and environmental accounting for Indonesian companies should consist of four dimensions: economic, environmental, social, and spiritual. Among these dimensions, the implementation of the spiritual dimension in social and environmental accounting faces the greatest challenges.