Description
This paper illuminates how a journal and its editor can initiate and foster a stream of high quality and
influential research in a novel area. It does this by analysing Accounting, Organizations and Society's
(AOS's) and Anthony Hopwood's nurturing of research into key aspects of accounting for social sustainability
for several decades before this research area became established. Our discussion unveils how
the initiation of unique research areas may initially involve the publication of risky papers driven primarily
by passion. Through the steering of a journal editor, subsequent work can proceed to combine this
passion with academic rigour and produce research insights that can benefit society by positively
influencing policy and practice. It is this attention to rigour that we argue needs to be central to future
research in accounting for social sustainability (and accounting for sustainability more broadly) if it is to
continue producing purposeful knowledge. We offer several substantive directions for future research
aimed at producing such knowledge.
Fostering rigour in accounting for social sustainability
Brendan O'Dwyer
a, *
, Jeffrey Unerman
b
a
University of Amsterdam Business School, The Netherlands
b
School of Management, Royal Holloway, University of London, England, United Kingdom
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 9 July 2015
Accepted 13 November 2015
Available online xxx
a b s t r a c t
This paper illuminates how a journal and its editor can initiate and foster a stream of high quality and
in?uential research in a novel area. It does this by analysing Accounting, Organizations and Society's
(AOS's) and Anthony Hopwood's nurturing of research into key aspects of accounting for social sus-
tainability for several decades before this research area became established. Our discussion unveils how
the initiation of unique research areas may initially involve the publication of risky papers driven pri-
marily by passion. Through the steering of a journal editor, subsequent work can proceed to combine this
passion with academic rigour and produce research insights that can bene?t society by positively
in?uencing policy and practice. It is this attention to rigour that we argue needs to be central to future
research in accounting for social sustainability (and accounting for sustainability more broadly) if it is to
continue producing purposeful knowledge. We offer several substantive directions for future research
aimed at producing such knowledge.
© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
This paper aims to illuminate howa journal and its editor can be
in?uential in fostering a stream of high quality and in?uential
research in a novel area. It does this by analysing Accounting, Or-
ganizations and Society's (AOS's) fostering of research into aspects of
accounting for sustainability across several decades. An important
element in AOS's encouragement of research in this area was the
risks its founding editor, Anthony Hopwood, was willing to take in
supporting innovative accounting for sustainability research e as
part of his ambition to re-de?ne the intellectual landscape of ac-
counting (see: Chapman, Cooper, & Miller, 2009).
Given the breadth of issues underlying accounting for sustain-
ability, to provide a suf?ciently narrow analytical focus for this
paper we examine the role of AOS in nurturing a research stream
seeking to enhance social sustainability through examination of the
democratic functioning of information ?ows to stakeholders other
than providers of ?nancial capital. Cooper and Morgan (2013)
explain that literature in this ?eld recognises that accounting
(including corporate reporting) in?uences the culture of society,
especially what is seen as important in society and for what
organizations are understood to be responsible and accountable.
This domain affords primacy to a notion of the public interest that
extends beyond the needs of capital providers in discussions of
accounting and reporting, through examining and seeking to
design reporting that addresses issues of stewardship in corporate
accountability (Harte & Owen, 1987; Owen, 1990). Although AOS
and Hopwood also supported the development of research in other
areas of accounting for sustainability (such as environmental ac-
counting), it is through this particular aspect of social sustainability
that this paper highlights the manner in which a journal and its
editor can nurture, in?uence and help shape a novel ?eld of
research.
We recognize that journals other than AOS also have long track
records of proactive and effective support for research into these
issues (for example: Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal,
Critical Perspectives on Accounting, Social and Environmental
Accountability Journal and Accounting Forum). However, as this pa-
per does not aim to provide a comprehensive literature review of
the area of social sustainability upon which we focus, but rather to
examine the manner in which a journal and its editor can in?uence
the development of a research area, we consider a focus on key
papers published in AOS to be appropriate. We do, however,
recognize that a limitation of this paper is that we do not have
space to discuss in?uential papers published in other journals (see,
for example: Bebbington & Gray, 2001; Gray, Dey, Owen, Evans, &
Zadek, 1997; Neu, Cooper, & Everett, 2001; Tinker, Lehman, &
* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: [email protected] (B. O'Dwyer), [email protected].
uk (J. Unerman).
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Accounting, Organizations and Society
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0361-3682/© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Accounting, Organizations and Society xxx (2015) 1e9
Please cite this article in press as: O'Dwyer, B., & Unerman, J., Fostering rigour in accounting for social sustainability, Accounting, Organizations
and Society (2015),http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.aos.2015.11.003
Neimark, 1991) which we would have addressed had this paper
taken the form of a more broadly-based comprehensive literature
review of the ?eld of accounting for social sustainability.
As in other areas of accounting (and broader social science)
research, insights from accounting for sustainability research have
had the potential to provide a robust evidence base upon which
more effective policies and practices can be developed (Unerman &
Chapman, 2014). This in?uence has been realised where such
research has been underpinned by a commitment to rigour. While
much of the recent expansion of accounting for sustainability
research exhibits this commitment, we argue that this needs to
become more widespread. As Gray (2002) noted when reviewing
the smaller earlier body of social and environmental accounting
research from the late 20th century, accounting for sustainability
research needs to be continually wary of combining too much
apparent passion with too little rigour.
While progress requires that there must always be scope for
individual researchers to motivate a community of researchers to
focus on novel research problems, researchers who are passion-
ately interested in a novel issue also need to demonstrate that the
issue is non-trivial and of broader interest and relevance before
developing a research programme to address it. So, while passion
can be very effective at motivating an array of research questions, a
?lter needs to be applied in deciding which of these questions are
reasonably justi?able to pursue. As an example of research issues
which we have recently seen in accounting for social sustainability
that we do not regard as having successfully passed through this
?lter: where individual organizations do not have a material re-
sponsibility for a particular sustainability issue, there is little merit
in undertaking research into organizational management or
discharge of accountabilities for this issue (Unerman & Zappettini,
2014). Conversely, in the conclusions to this paper we highlight
some novel substantive issues which could form the basis of future
research programmes.
Once appropriate research questions have been established,
they need to be addressed in a dispassionately rigorous manner.
They cannot simply be driven by a priori judgements on what the
answers should be e where evidence could be drawn upon selec-
tively to give a desired answer. As Neu et al. (2001, p. 740) warn us:
“with only a concern for the ends, any means [can] be justi?ed”.
Where research is not “based on sound argument, reasoning and
demonstration” (Neu et al., 2001, p. 740), at best it will be ignored
and will thereby miss an opportunity to in?uence developments in
policy and practice. At worst, it will be taken up by policy makers
and practitioners and have an adverse in?uence on the resulting
policies and practices, and risk damaging the reputation of the
academic community.
Motivating research questions within the speci?c area of social
sustainability that this paper focuses on, the literature identi?es
four core principles: human well-being, equality, democratic gov-
ernment, and democratic society (Magis & Shinn, 2009). In practice
at the organizational level, these four principles are manifest in
issues such as fairness in distribution and opportunity, adequate
provision of social services, including health and education, gender
equity, and political accountability and participation (Dillard,
Dujon, & King, 2009). Among the major issues arising for organi-
zations with respect to these aspects of social sustainability,
therefore, are their interactions with employees, suppliers, com-
munities and consumers. These include employment terms and
conditions, union recognition and interactions, supply chain im-
pacts such as human rights abuses in supply chains, impacts on
communities comprising health impacts, displacement of com-
munities, socioeconomic impacts when organizations leave com-
munities, and consumer impacts such as product safety and
responsible advertising (Bebbington & Dillard, 2009, p. 158). The
early work in AOS we revisit in this paper pays particular attention
to a small selection of these themes, especially as they relate to
(reporting to) employees and communities. Research questions in
this early work were constructed from perceived ‘real world
problems’ (see: Alvesson & Sandberg, 2011, 2013) surrounding the
nature of corporate reporting.
We complement our analysis of insights from papers and de-
bates published in AOS that profoundly in?uenced our under-
standing with an explanation of some of Hopwood's interactions
with policy and practice in accounting for (social) sustainability. We
thereby re?ect not only on the development and in?uence of
themes surrounding speci?c aspects of accounting for social sus-
tainability underlying key papers published in AOS, but also on
Hopwood's in?uence on both academic work and public policy in
this area. We subsequently drawon both these elements to provide
an informed, albeit personal, view of fruitful future directions for
research in this area.
Before examining some of the signi?cant insights published in
AOS, we explore the context within which the journal nurtured this
strand of research. In so doing, we explain the in?uence of two
early papers e one polemic on accounting and social sustainability
published in the ?rst volume of AOS (Medawar, 1976) and a later
paper that, while not speci?cally focused on issues of social sus-
tainability, we regard to be key in adding renewed academic rigour
to research studies examining issues in this area (Cooper & Sherer,
1984). We also explain Hopwood's fostering of research in this area
e through insights from his key editorials that addressed ‘ac-
counting and sustainability’ and through his policy work around
accounting for sustainability.
2. Setting the AOS agenda and challenge on accounting for
social sustainability
Contributions to learned journals traditionally mark their work
by the self-denying use of pronouns (to denote objectivity) and
by the inclusion of suitably humble, and sometimes unctuous,
acknowledgements to the effect that the presence, or even the
bias, of the observer might possibly have in?uenced the course
of the events being described. I shall depart fromthis tradition. I
want to emphasise that my colleagues and I at Social Audit are
biased e and that that bias underpins our interest in our work.
(Medawar, 1976, p. 389).
The quotation above is taken from a short paper by Charles
Medawar (1976) published in the ?rst volume of AOS which
signi?ed an explicit beginning for AOS as a journal in which ac-
counting for social sustainability was set up for examination (see
also, Hopwood, 1978a). Medawar's paper proved inspirational for a
set of papers elucidating themes of critical engagement, stake-
holder accountability, and public policy impact.
We consider Medawar's paper to be an essential entry point to
our review for a number of reasons. First, it is a polemic which is
highly normative and does not make explicit use of theory, other
than a broad conception of social accountability as “a process in
which those within corporate bodies, with decision making
powers, propose, explain and justify the use of those powers to
those without” (Medawar, 1976, p. 393). Hence, it is an agenda-
setting paper driven more by passion than academic rigour, and
would likely not be published in a leading academic journal in to-
day's academic environment (see: Hopwood, 2007; Humphrey &
Gendron, 2015). Second, it focuses on assessing and enabling
democratic ideals which are central to our interpretation of ac-
counting for social sustainability. Third, Medawar perceives a
limited role for accountants (and accounting academics) in ful?lling
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Please cite this article in press as: O'Dwyer, B., & Unerman, J., Fostering rigour in accounting for social sustainability, Accounting, Organizations
and Society (2015),http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.aos.2015.11.003
these ideals through forms of social accounting and social audit, a
position he reiterated nine years later in private correspondence
with Hopwood (Hopwood, 1985). He regarded accountants as being
associated with quests for acceptable, objective and veri?able
measurement techniques and questioned the commitment of
accountancy and accountants to designing reporting mechanisms
in the public interest. Fourth, Medawar prioritised those who he
regarded as needing information rather than those who possessed
it, and argued that the bene?t of the doubt should be given to broad
stakeholder groups such as employees and local communities.
Through his polemic, Medawar, in effect, laid down a challenge in
AOS to accountants and accounting academics whom he did not
entirely trust to develop substantive and effective ‘social account-
ing’ (or accounting for society).
Medawar's paper was published in, and re?ective of, a particular
1970s
0
UK social and political context in which the need for and
means of reporting to employees and trade unions was being
actively considered and the broad concept of ‘social accounting’
was entering accounting discourse (Burchell, Clubb, & Hopwood,
1985). Tricker (1975) placed accounting ?rmly within this social
and political context in his call for the major UK research funding
body, the SSRC (Social Science Research Council), to support
research examining the changing social context of accounting e
given that accounting practice in the UK was becoming central to
many prominent national policy debates (Hopwood, 1985).
Accounting in?uences at this time within the UK ranged from
discussions surrounding in?ation accounting to the publication of
The Corporate Report which advocated stewardship as an important
aspect of the ‘public accountability’ of organizations. The Corporate
Report articulated a need to broaden the scope and nature of
corporate reporting, through, inter alia, the publication of value-
added statements showing how the bene?ts and efforts of an en-
terprise were shared between employees, capital providers, the
state and reinvestment (Burchell et al., 1985, p. 386). Its contro-
versial recommendations about expanding reporting scope were
largely accepted by the UK government e despite the protestations
of the accounting profession eand by the late 1970s more than 20%
of UK companies were producing value-added statements (Burchell
et al., 1985).
The SSRC also set up a committee to advance the understanding
of the social and political nature of accounting and the social
relevance and usefulness of accounting practice (see, Hopwood,
1985). While the committee did not produce a ?nal report,
Hopwood's, 1985 AOS paper re?ecting on the committee's de-
liberations indicated that such a report would have contained a key
recommendation that the SSRC should commission engagement-
focused ‘action research’. Much of this would examine the actual
(and potential) use of accounting data within social and political
contexts, particularly with respect to attempts to relate extensions
in accounting practice to the furtherance of a range of social
interests.
This resonates with the theme of Medawar's (1976) AOS polemic
on social accounting. Given Medawar's normative orientation and
lack of explicit theorization, his paper was a testament to the early
publication risks AOS was willing to take and to the attention that
Hopwood devoted to alternative thinking about the role of and
relationship between accounting and the social. Medawar's paper
also indicated, albeit implicitly, certain key themes that scholars
writing in AOS would soon seriously address: a broad conception of
accountability focused on the information needs of employees and
local communities, the centrality of critical engagement, and the
signi?cance of seeking policy impact.
Cooper and Sherer (1984) echoed Medawar's call for “the crea-
tion of accountings that [we]re valuable in society” (p. 208) and for
a greater understanding of accounting in the context of the social,
political and economic environment in which it operated (p. 225;
see also, Tinker, 1980). They critiqued the economic consequences
analysis approach to understanding and valuing the role of ac-
counting reports in a broader societal context, as they regarded this
approach as being overly ?xated on the consequences of the reports
for the behaviour and interests of the shareholder and/or corporate
manager, while largely ignoring users such as employees, trade
unions and governments. Cooper and Sherer (1984) were also early
proponents of direct engagement research, aimed at countering the
limited evidence in the literature concerning the way managers
actually arrived at their attitudes or decisions (p. 216), a concern
that pervaded Hopwood's early writings in AOS (see: Burchell,
Clubb, Hopwood, & Nahapiet, 1980; Hopwood, 1976, 1978b, 1983,
1985, 1987).
Their urging for researchers to be explicitly normative,
descriptive and critical is to us one of the core clarion calls to those
researching accounting for social sustainability. Key aspects of
these themes pervaded some early pioneering AOS papers in ac-
counting for social sustainability by Harte and Owen (1987) and
Owen and Lloyd (1985), and were also evident in Cooper and Essex
(1977) prior to Cooper & Sherer's, 1984 paper.
We revisit these early papers below, which mobilised Med-
awar's call for a reporting focus on the information needs of groups
other than shareholders, and prioritised engagement-based
research partially focused on articulating public policy recom-
mendations. Before moving on to consider the contributions of
these papers, we brie?y highlight key elements of Hopwood's long-
standing commitment to developing policy in this area. This
commitment helps provide additional context to understand the
commitment of AOS to developing and nurturing this strand of
research.
2.1. Policy commitment and editorial steering
Hopwood's support for the development of accounting for social
sustainability was evident both in his writings and editorial actions
in the early days of AOS. It was also manifest in his engagement
with policy bodies. For example, he was later a board member of
the Prince of Wales's Accounting for Sustainability Project (A4S),
which sought to develop mechanisms to help organizations embed
connected understandings and appreciations of sustainability in
their decision-making and reporting. A4S explicitly recognized
three main elements to long-term sustainability: social, environ-
mental and economic. A key feature of A4S was an attempt to use
reporting to instigate some formof organizational and public policy
change ea feature that resonated with the aims of Medawar (1976)
and Cooper and Sherer (1984) (and Harte and Owen (1987) and
Owen and Lloyd (1985) as discussed below). In arguing for the
interconnectedness between and importance of these three ele-
ments, Hopwood's in?uence and insights into the importance of
social sustainability were evident. This was the latest of his active
encouragements for the development of public policy that helped
develop the roles of accounting in enhancing social sustainability.
In light of Hopwood's concern to encourage studies of ac-
counting in action, at the beginning of 2009 A4S commissioned a
research project comprising in-depth case studies of the way eight
large public and private sector organizations had engaged with the
principles and practices underlying Accounting for Sustainability
(including A4S's Connected Reporting Framework). In initiating this
project, Hopwood yet again demonstrated his belief in, and
commitment to, engagement with policy and practice as a way to
help improve the sustainability of the social world and the
environment.
Although the Accounting for Sustainability case studies had
been motivated by a desire to use academic expertise to provide a
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and Society (2015),http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.aos.2015.11.003
robust, while accessible, evidence base to further policy and prac-
tice, Hopwood was also concerned to use the insights to advance
the academic literature. He therefore decided to use a later special
section in AOS to publish explicitly and robustly theorized insights
from the case study work. The special section was published in AOS
in 2014, some years after Hopwood's’ untimely death, but as a
?tting tribute to his in?uence in advancing research in this area e
and to his long-standing commitment to and steering of this strand
of research in AOS. We nowturn to an exploration of the AOS papers
we consider to have been core to this unfolding strand of research.
3. Assessing stewardship and facilitating employee decision
making
A focus on the information needs of user groups other than
shareholders, especially employees and trade unions, pervaded
Cooper and Essex (1977). They argued that ‘accounting should not
develop in isolation from society’ (p. 202) and were positively
assertive, in contrast to Medawar (1976), about the role accountants
could and should play in identifying union and employee decision
models which could contribute to employee welfare.
1
They argued,
however, that employees' and unions' own perceived needs for
information should not be prioritised, but that a decision-
orientated approach focusing on the decisions that these users
should be taking needed to be developed. Only then, they claimed,
could the information that was actually needed be considered, as
this could then be matched with the decision models that, for
example, employee representatives should be using. Hence, user
needs as opposed to wants were to be prioritised.
An implicit plea for enhanced engagement was evident in their
call for research to observe the decision-making of employee rep-
resentatives. This was consistent with their concern to encourage
the reporting of relevant information as, without relevance, the
information reported might only allowmarginal adjustments to the
status quo. Moreover, they suggested that accountants should
become involved in producing reports relevant for decisions about
an enterprise rather than just reports on an enterprise.
Harte and Owen (1987) developed the theme of engagement
and the focus on employee users of corporate reports in their ef-
forts to establish a normative framework for social cost analysis in
the context of de-industrialisation in the UK. They focused on local
governments in the UK as important users of corporate information
while lamenting the lack of accountability to workforces and local
communities when large-scale manufacturing industries were
closed down. They contended that it was an indictment of corpo-
rate reporting that accounting reports offered no indication of the
public costs of the unemployment created by plant closure decisions
e a major social sustainability issue. They elaborated on the
absence of ‘true accountability’ e also alluded to by Medawar
(1976) e because, while information provision could assist in
forming judgements, labour representatives also needed the power
to hold private enterprise to account. As existing legislation pre-
vented this possibility, they posited that local government could be
better able to exercise this power. Harte and Owen (1987) were
openly normative in arguing for the existence of a social contract
between local governments and business to support their case for
business to be held accountable to local communities when
divestment decisions were made. Their ‘true accountability’ notion
represented an explicit acknowledgement of a broader stewardship
role for accounting and accountants.
In formulating their recommendations, Harte and Owen (1987)
critically evaluated existing social cost analyses conducted by local
authorities in the wake of plant closures. While their analysis was
robust in the context of studies of the time, it did not explicitly
assemble theory to help understand why the practices were enac-
ted in the manner they were. However, their desire to pursue policy
impact was palpable in their critique and in their proposed
framework charting what they contended local authorities should
require from reporting on the social costs of closures. They
concurred with Cooper and Essex (1977) that reporting should
assist decisions about an enterprise rather than merely reporting on
an enterprise. Both papers acknowledged a broad decision-
usefulness role for reporting information while simultaneously
signalling a stewardship role.
These papers also encouraged enhanced researcher engage-
ment. Harte and Owen (1987) encouraged research examining
what local government sawas its role in relation to business during
a period of de-industrialisation in order to assist in developing a
detailed framework that they felt could then be tried and tested.
They refer to conversations they had with local government plan-
ning departments and, from these, derived four roles for social
accounting and reporting: a reactive role; a positive use role; a
regular monitoring role; and an educational use role. Cooper and
Essex (1977) argued that research should observe the decision-
making of employee representatives; a call consistent with their
concern to encourage a focus on the reporting of relevant
information.
In a related study, Owen and Lloyd (1985) examined the role of
?nancial information in company- and plant-level bargaining be-
tween managers and employees. They critiqued a tendency among
a suite of SSRC-funded studies to assume a universal ‘identikit’
employee representative in their consideration of the use of
(?nancial) information in company-employee bargaining pro-
cesses. With respect to the SSRC studies, they concluded that this
was surprising given that these studies comprised nuanced cases of
a form of ‘accounting in action’ in which the use of information in
company- and plant-level bargaining was studied. Hence, while
applauding the rich contextual detail of the SSRC studies (p.331),
they criticised the rather general nature of many of the studies'
conclusions. Moreover, they sought to address a key issue which
they felt these studies ignored: the reasons for the low rates of
utilisation of corporate ?nancial information by union negotiators.
Owen and Lloyd (1985) were critical of the normative approach
adopted by Cooper and Essex (1977) that sought to specify a uni-
versal decision model for union representatives. For them, this
represented a potentially fruitless search for universal objectives
given that many union/employee users differed in their objectives.
Cooper and Essex (1977) were accused of failing to develop their
arguments suf?ciently with respect to identifying exactly the
differing nature of employee representatives and the diverse
organizational contexts in which negotiations took place.
Owen and Lloyd (1985) offered a tentative analytical framework
designed to assist future researchers more rigorously consider the
contexts within which various trade union representatives used
?nancial information. This, they argued, would unlock research into
differing approaches to ?nancial information use by assorted union
representatives, a call McBarnet, Weston, and Whelan (1993)
responded to in AOS some years later. Owen and Lloyd's (1985)
explicit purpose was not only to contribute academically but to
also offer insights for policy development; a concern consistent
1
Rob Gray, Jan Bebbington and colleagues effectively countered many of Med-
awar's concerns in their extensive work exploring a social role for accounting (see,
for example: Gray et al., 1997; Bebbington & Gray, 2001; Bebbington & Larrinaga,
2014; Bebbington et al., 2007). David Cooper and colleagues such as Dean Neu,
through their activism and academic work have also issued effective (implicit) ri-
postes to Medawar's concerns about the trust that should be placed in accounting
academics. They have sought to integrate the theoretical and praxis components of
accounting scholarship by intervening in the public domain (see, for example:
Everett, Neu, Rahaman, & Maharaj, 2015; Neu et al., 2001).
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and Society (2015),http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.aos.2015.11.003
with the fact that by the time the paper was published, one of its
authors, Anthony Lloyd, was a UK Member of Parliament.
What these initial studies share is a commitment to expanding
the horizons of accounting to incorporate a speci?c aspect of ac-
counting for social sustainability e the nature and focus on
reporting by companies to employees or their representatives.
While not always explicitly stressed, engagement is emphasised
and the importance of holding managers to account predominates.
2
There is, however, also a decision-usefulness emphasis embedded
in this work, albeit one focused on a broad set of corporate stake-
holders. These studies were very much of their time: a UK eco-
nomic and political context infused with industrial con?ict. As
Hopwood (2005, 2007) later observed, these papers were largely
driven by passion characterised by commitment, raw curiosity and
a desire to ruf?e the conservative mainstream of accounting
research through prioritising the social functioning of accounting.
They sought to signi?cantly enhance our knowledge and stimulate
debate. The act of publishing was merely one part of a process ul-
timately aimed at a more holistically-oriented and rigorous devel-
opment of evidence and insights. The core impetus underpinning
this work was simultaneously sustained by a stream of AOS papers
authored by Hopwood and others exhorting a focus on ‘accounting
in action’ fuelled by methodological and theoretical innovation
(see, for example: Burchell et al., 1980; Hopwood, 1983, 1987; Miller
& O'Leary, 1987).
In the 15 years after the papers discussed above, there was a
notable absence of major work published in AOS that advanced the
speci?c themes developed in these papers (see, however, Lehman,
1999). The next key paper in AOS that we regard as directly
addressing these issues is a reviewpaper by Gray published in 2002
in which he, inter alia, addressed the possible reasons for this
absence.
4. Whither accountability, engagement and theory?
Re?ecting on absence in AOS
While, during the 1990s, some important work was published in
AOS examining aspects of accounting for environmental sustain-
ability (see: Gray, 1992; Neu, Warsame, & Pedwell, 1998;
Rubenstein, 1992) substantive work focusing /on accounting spe-
ci?cally for social sustainability was largely absent from the pages
of the journal for a considerable period. This absence was at a time
when social and organizational concerns for sustainability were
focused primarily on shorter-term economic sustainability, but also
with a small and growing emphasis on environmental sustain-
ability (with little explicit recognition of the social goals underlying
such economic and environmental sustainability). This was evident
in accounting and reporting practices that reported on economic
and environmental sustainability (Gray, 2002).
Gray (2002) re?ected on this absence in his review of what he
broadly termed ‘social accounting’ research. He regretted that very
fewof the themes of the early papers were taken forward by papers
in AOS. Gray also noted a continuance of what he termed ‘US-style
empiricism’ in social and environmental reporting papers pub-
lished in AOS from the mid-1980s to the early to mid-1990s, which
largely ignored wider user groups. He argued that the ‘social ac-
counting’ literature was failing as an academic endeavour due to its
underdeveloped theorization and preference for passion over
rigour, characteristics which he regarded as inevitably contributing
to its absence from the pages of AOS. However, an alternative
perspective on this absence could be that with few organizations
engaging in (speci?cally) social, rather than environmental,
reporting, or other accounting practices in this area, there was too
little contemporary empirical material or policy interest to provide
a substantive evidence base for rigorous research work of this na-
ture. Gray (2002) argued that possibly inappropriate criteria in
some journals might also hinder academic endeavour in areas
where there is little current practice to build upon.
Gray (2002) outlined a future focus for researchers aimed at
learning how to write and theorize engagement. However, his key
concern, an issue we will return to later, was the absence of a
greater meta-theory for ‘social accounting’ (p.703). He considered
this necessary in order to discover what it was that social ac-
counting scholars were really interested in and why. He also
appealed for social accounting to cease chasing the latest fad e at
this time, issues surrounding accounting and the physical envi-
ronment were prominent e and he asked: “whatever happened to
employees? Are they unimportant these days? I should have
thought not” (p.703). In making these calls, Gray reiterated the
hopes and aspirations expressed in the earlier papers by Owen and
Harte (1985), Owen and Lloyd (1985) and Cooper and Essex (1977).
5. A tentative evolution in theorized engagement
After Gray (2002), between 2002 and 2009 a number of ?eld
studies into accounting for social sustainability were published by
AOS. In adjacent journals such as such as Accounting, Auditing and
Accountability Journal (AAAJ) and Critical Perspectives on Accounting
(CPA), theorized engagement in this area also became more
prominent (see, for example: Bebbington, Brown, Frame, &
Thomson, 2007; Neu et al., 2001) and Gray's (2002) exhortations
were often enrolled in support of certain foci. The social sustain-
ability work appearing in AOS in this period was, however, some-
times not explicitly theorized (O'Dwyer, 2005) or was underpinned
by broad theorization mobilising overly general conceptions of
legitimacy (see, for example, Deegan & Blomquist, 2006). These
studies focused on the problems, both organizational and institu-
tional, of accounting for social sustainability and emphasised the
apparent impossibility of achieving Medawar's ambition of ‘true
accountability’ (Cooper &Owen, 2007; O'Dwyer, 2005). Little of the
positive, solution-oriented focus of Cooper and Essex (1977) and
Owen and Harte (1987) was evident.
During this period, Unerman and Bennett (2004) departed from
this trend. They mobilised Habermasian discourse ethics to offer a
theoretical model for determining corporate social, environmental,
economic and ethical responsibilities, thereby placing a simulta-
neous focus on organizational-stakeholder engagement. Unerman
and Bennett (2004) revisited the earlier theme of democratic
corporate accountability and assessed how features of the moral
consensus-building discourse criteria of an ideal speech situation
advocated by Habermas could be incorporated into stakeholder
engagement using the internet. Their assessment of the potential of
Shell's stakeholder dialogue ‘web forum’ to conform to this ideal
speech situation sought to produce practical policy insights, which
have subsequently become more pertinent with the evolution of
social media. The paper combined the engagement and public
policy focus of the earlier work by Harte and Owen (1987) and
Owen and Lloyd (1985). However, unlike this prior work, Unerman
and Bennett (2004) made explicit use of theory in a way that
enhanced the robustness of the insights and understanding they
2
The disclosure of ?nancial/accounting information to employees and trade
unions was an issue that engendered much debate in the pages of AOS around this
time. For example, while Ogden and Bougen (1985) outlined some negotiation
bene?ts for trade unions in using accounting information disclosed by manage-
ment, they also warned that unions needed to tread carefully as they would
“become exposed to the latent ideological conditioning such information entail
[ed]” (p. 222) and would enter a discourse that was exclusively managerial in its
rationale. Craft (1981) actually argued, albeit in a nuanced manner, that disclosure
to employees was often unwarranted and inappropriate.
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Please cite this article in press as: O'Dwyer, B., & Unerman, J., Fostering rigour in accounting for social sustainability, Accounting, Organizations
and Society (2015),http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.aos.2015.11.003
provided.
O'Dwyer (2005) developed the theme of stakeholder account-
ability in his in-depth ?eld study of a social accounting process in
an overseas aid agency. He highlighted the intense complexity and
petty politics involved in realising democratic ideals within these
processes. Consistent with Unerman and Bennett (2004), he un-
veiled the nature of the dif?culties less powerful stakeholders,
including employees, have in holding management to account,
especially when information is undisclosed or inherently ?awed.
However, while offering a rich case analysis, theorization in
O'Dwyer (2005) was largely implicit and represented something of
a missed opportunity to further develop many of the emerging
theoretical ideas introduced by Unerman and Bennett (2004).
Following on from Unerman and Bennett (2004), Cooper and
Owen (2007) drew, albeit tentatively, on Habermas's ideal speech
situation to evaluate the extent to which increased sustainability
reporting in the UK had operated to enhance “extra-corporeal”
accountability (Roberts, 2003) through empowering those most
vulnerable to the effects of corporate conduct. They cited Cooper
and Sherer (1984) in support of their avowedly normative stance
and articulated an ambition to advance public policy debate (p.
653). They reintroduced employees as a key reporting stakeholder
and, consistent with Cooper and Essex (1977) and Owen and Lloyd
(1985), focused on the effective utilization of information by
empowered employee recipients.
In a 2009 AOS editorial on accounting for sustainability,
Hopwood (2009) re?ected upon the role of A4S. He noted its
Connected Reporting Framework's efforts to move beyond a static
aim of merely reporting and to introduce a dynamic element into
organizational life. The Connected Reporting Framework sought to
stretch existing corporate policies and actions rather than radically
change them, a focus with which Medawar (1976) may not have
been entirely comfortable. Hopwood applauded this attempt to
integrate an explicit consideration of organizational change pro-
cesses into the design of a reporting system. While Cooper and
Essex (1977) and Harte and Owen (1987) sought to develop
decision-making frameworks aimed at assisting users such as
employees, Hopwood (2009) aimed at fostering the introduction of
new forms of information into organizational decision-making and
external reporting and therefore focused more explicitly on
shaping organizational behaviour in order to facilitate particular
user groups.
Our reading of Hopwood's 2009 editorial reinforces the view
that he had long been giving serious thought to issues surrounding
accounting for social sustainability. Similar to Gray (2002), with
whom he had corresponded while writing the editorial, he
expressed concern at the continuing absence of (theorized) ?eld
studies (although these were, by now, being published in other
journals such as AAAJ and CPA). He returned to the theme of
broader-based reporting prevalent in Cooper and Sherer (1984) and
Harte and Owen (1987), suggesting that this remained an area in
urgent need of more research e especially as reporting could
actually reduce what was known about a company and its activities,
thereby acting as a form of corporate veil (p. 437). Consistent with
Medawar (1976), Cooper and Essex (1977) and Harte and Owen
(1987) he sought relevant information and preferred to focus on
those who needed information rather than those who possessed it.
5.1. Theorized engagement and public policy impotence
Subsequent to Hopwood (2009), Archel, Husillos, and Spence
(2011) took up the mantle of Owen and Lloyd (1985), Harte and
Owen (1987) and Cooper and Essex (1977). They did this through
their case study of a government-initiated stakeholder consultation
process in Spain designed to propose measures aimed at
stimulating responsible and sustainable business behaviour and
reporting. Participants included NGOs, publicly listed companies,
academics and trade unions. While the consultation process did not
have the exclusive employee focus of Harte and Owen (1987) and
the other earlier studies, it contained many of their core in-
gredients. For example, one of the consultations comprised a
tripartite forum of government representatives, Spain's most
in?uential employer's association, and the two largest Spanish
trade unions. Archel et al. (2011), while not citing any of the earlier
relevant AOS papers discussed above, adopted many of their tenets.
They also re?ected the changing institutional context within which
issues surrounding accounting for social sustainability were now
being discussed.
While the early papers by Harte and Owen (1987) and Owen and
Lloyd (1985) sought to improve engagement processes and the
reporting and decision-making therein, Archel et al.'s (2011)
theoretically informed analysis led to the conclusion that efforts
of this nature were futile in the Spanish context. Their analysis
illustrated how stakeholder consultations legitimated dominant,
business-as-usual discourses on corporate social responsibility (see
also, Malsch, 2013). Harte and Owen (1987) and Owen and Lloyd
(1985) had attributed signi?cant agency to trade unions in effec-
tively invoking change through engagement that drew on the
disclosure of relevant information, admittedly at a time when, and
in a context where, they were much more powerful. In contrast,
Archel et al. (2011) accused the trade unions they studied of acting
in concert with the corporate sector and effectively silencing voices
from civil society, thereby leaving civil society without any coun-
tervailing power to unite around. They also argued that the unions
played a role in institutionalising a CSR discourse contradicting the
interests of civil society and, in the long term, the interests of their
own membership. Given the non-mandatory nature of the pro-
posals emerging fromthe consultation process studied, Archel et al.
(2011) deemed it unlikely that other civil society groups would be
able to hold corporations to account even if stakeholder consulta-
tion processes were improved. They advanced the accounting for
social sustainability literature through their rigorous use and
development of theory, their focus on contemporary engagement
practices, and, in particular, their insights on the institutional
context examined. While they made a signi?cant contribution to
advancing the literature, their conclusions shared with Gray (2010)
a viewthat accounting for social (and environmental) sustainability
was a futile practice. This mobilised their apparently ?rm a priori
normative view that any engagement with the corporate sector
would inevitably be captured and would consequently fail to
further social sustainability.
5.2. Theorized engagement: contesting calls for greater meta-
theory
After the above papers, the next work published in AOS specif-
ically focused on accounting for social sustainability was in the
2014 special section on Accounting for Sustainability (see also:
Nicholls, 2009, 2010). In their agenda-setting introduction to the
special section, Unerman and Chapman (2014) argue that some
academics seem to believe there to be a risk that the kind of in-
tellectual investment necessary to understand theory is perceived
as a distraction from important and practically relevant work; a
concern implicit in Gray's (2002) earlier review. However, as the
Accounting for Sustainability research project revealed, this is a
fallacy and theorized engagement of the social should take centre
place in the accounting for social sustainability literature if the
academy is to provide answers to socially signi?cant research
questions.
In the 2014 special section, rigour through theoretically
B. O'Dwyer, J. Unerman / Accounting, Organizations and Society xxx (2015) 1e9 6
Please cite this article in press as: O'Dwyer, B., & Unerman, J., Fostering rigour in accounting for social sustainability, Accounting, Organizations
and Society (2015),http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.aos.2015.11.003
informed analysis of engagement, stewardship and transparency
was prevalent. Spence and Rinaldi (2014) examined accounting-
based decision-making mechanisms designed to enhance sustain-
ability management and social responsibility among organizations
in a supply chain, a central social sustainability issue. Thomson,
Grubnic, and Georgakopoulos (2014) sought to understand how
government policies aimed at enhancing sustainability and
improving social justice in the delivery of public services were
fostered. Studies that focused on reporting information were also
infused with an engagement intent. For example, Contrafatto
(2014) examined and theorized the process through which sus-
tainability reporting became institutionalized in an Italian
company.
As Unerman and Chapman (2014) highlighted, the theoretical
depth and diversity displayed in papers in the special section, allied
to the rich, nuanced empirical observations of engagement, rep-
resented both an important contribution to advancing academic
insights around the roles of accounting in sustainable development
(including issues of social sustainability) and demonstrated ways in
which in-depth, focused and tailored theorization can help to
advance these insights. Having demonstrated this pathway to the
provision of original and rigorous insights on accounting for social
sustainability, we might then expect future studies to further
develop sophistication in the use of in-depth theorizations to help
advance policy and practice in this area. Within the concluding
section of this paper, we propose some major areas where we
envisage future high quality academic studies into the roles of ac-
counting in social sustainability could help advance policy and
practice.
6. Concluding thoughts e from retrospective to prospective
This paper has sought to elucidate how a journal and its editor
can nurture a stream of high quality and in?uential research in a
novel area. It has done this by analysing AOS's and Hopwood's
nurturing of research into certain aspects of accounting for social
sustainability for several decades before this research area became
widespread. Our discussion reveals how the instigation of novel
research areas may initially involve the publication of risky papers
driven primarily by passion. Guided by a journal editor, subsequent
work then needs to combine this passion with academic rigour to
yield research insights that advance society by progressively
shaping policy and practice. It is this concern for rigour that we
contend needs to continue to be central to research in accounting
for social sustainability if purposeful knowledge is to be produced
(see also: Alvesson & Sandberg, 2013; Flyvbjerg, 2001). In the
remainder of the paper we offer our perspective on what we see as
some key aspects of this future research focus.
Recent work in AOS has begun to address both Hopwood's
(2009) and Gray's (2002) pleas for theorized engagement, albeit
with greater attention being afforded to environmental as opposed
to social sustainability. Despite this, numerous issues central to
social sustainability, such as reporting on human rights, supply
chain abuses, and fair trade, have received limited attention in AOS.
Recent accounting for social sustainability work in AOS has started
to move the focus of attention away from reporting on social sus-
tainability per se and more towards the processes through which
reporting evolves and is used by stakeholder groups, as well as
other aspects of accounting for social sustainability. We concur
with both Hopwood's (2009) and Gray's (2002) contention that
further high quality ?eld work is vital to advancing the study of
accounting for social sustainability, especially work focused on
understanding the ‘real world problems’ that Alvesson and
Sandberg (2011, 2013) claim management research has largely
neglected.
However, we share concerns that much research into account-
ing for social sustainability continues to consider motives for
reporting among listed companies. While the theorization under-
pinning these motives has evolved and become more nuanced, we
question whether additional theoretical explanations of these
motives are actually adding signi?cantly to our understanding, or if
this research stream has largely exhausted the possibility of
unveiling further compelling insights, with little potential for
rigorously informed and well-justi?ed research questions. We
would argue that there is more potential around questions about
how this reporting is constructed and used in a wide variety of
organizational contexts and about non-reporting aspects of ac-
counting for social sustainability. This latter area of questioning
includes the roles accounting can play in embedding considerations
underlying social sustainability into organizational decision-
making at strategic, tactical and operational levels (see,
Bebbington & Thomson, 2013).
Many of the more innovative and productive examples of ac-
counting for social sustainability may also well be emerging else-
where than in listed company contexts such as the public sector, co-
operatives, social enterprises, NGOs, and employee-owned com-
panies like John Lewis in the UK. The recent innovation in the US
and Europe of B Corporations (or Bene?t Corporations) that are
mandated to pursue both shareholder wealth maximisation and
altruistic social goals under a statutory framework (see: Hiller,
2013) represents an intriguing context within which to extend
research questions to hybrid organizational forms.
3
B Corporation
statutes have opened up a space for social enterprises to legally
articulate a dual mission, thereby implying that the nature and
process of their reporting and its impacts on wider stakeholders
should be of considerable research interest, particularly from an
accountability and decision-making perspective.
Studying reporting and decision-making experiments among B
Corporations has the potential to open up unique new examples of
‘accounting for social sustainability in action’, particularly where
organizational logics are likely to collide, as well as guiding future
reporting developments in accounting for social sustainability in
conventional corporations. Addressing research questions about
these new organizational contexts will help us understand better
how diverse organizations seek to account for issues of social
sustainability and how their frequently broader user base engages
with this accounting. This would also facilitate greater use of
comparative studies examining how and why various forms of ac-
counting for social sustainability proliferate and how these prac-
tices are in?uenced by prevailing institutional environments,
thereby enhancing inter-organizational theorizing. Themes of
engagement should also drive studies of how stakeholder groups
such as social movements, trade unions and think tanks are using
social sustainability information to construct their own accounts,
and with what effects (see: O'Sullivan & O'Dwyer, 2015). This focus
on those who are perceived to need information is what initially
inspired Medawar (1976), while the potential use of corporate
reporting by non-shareholder groups stimulated Cooper and Essex
(1977) and Harte and Owen (1987) to advance frameworks and
models to guide employee groups. Future research could address
questions such as what strategies and framings these groups are
nowmobilising to ensure improved disclosure, and to what ends (if
any) this disclosure has been used.
The scope of analysis among research projects in accounting for
social sustainability also needs to be expanded beyond individual
organizations. Medawar (1976) questioned the credentials and
commitment of accountants to designing reporting mechanisms in
3
See:http://www.bcorporation.net/. Last accessed November 2nd 2015.
B. O'Dwyer, J. Unerman / Accounting, Organizations and Society xxx (2015) 1e9 7
Please cite this article in press as: O'Dwyer, B., & Unerman, J., Fostering rigour in accounting for social sustainability, Accounting, Organizations
and Society (2015),http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.aos.2015.11.003
the public interest while Cooper and Essex (1977) endorsed them.
In the four decades since Medawar's paper was published there has
been extensive evidence that the public interest has been under-
mined by concerns to promote commercialism within professional
services ?rms and the accounting profession (see: Malsch &
Gendron, 2013; Muzio, Brock, & Suddaby, 2013). We need more
in-depth studies of how the profession and its constituent profes-
sional bodies have mobilised around accounting for social sus-
tainability and how this has been attached to claims to represent
the public interest. The accounting profession has been active in
promoting variants of sustainability reporting and, more recently,
‘connected’ and ‘integrated’ reporting. However, we have limited
robust evidence about how these bodies have constructed and
mobilised their engagement in the development of these new
reporting forms.
Research projects also need to encompass an examination of
how con?icting framings may underpin different professional ac-
counting bodies' efforts to promote reporting on social sustain-
ability. Of interest here would be comparisons of the way in which
professional accounting bodies frame their engagement with core
aspects of social sustainability such as human rights, supply chain
management and employee health and safety. Moreover, as many
academics have been engaging with these professional bodies on
these reporting evolutions over a long period, the construction of
accounts of these engagements would help further develop Hop-
wood's earlier accounts of his own extensive engagement efforts as
well as allowing for re?ection on the extent to which the public
policy impacts Hopwood aspired to are being realised.
A recent AOS paper by Murphy, O'Connell, and
O h
Ogartaigh
(2013) pondered why academics studying accounting for social
sustainability have neglected to undertake any active engagement
in the development of the Conceptual Framework for ?nancial
reporting. The initial papers we review in this essay supported a
broader conception of corporate reporting user groups than advo-
cated within the IASB/FASB joint conceptual framework project.
Murphy et al. (2013) argue that a narrowing of the de?nition of user
groups and a simultaneous downgrading of the stewardship
concept has had profound implications for the study of accounting
for social sustainability in a ?nancial reporting context (see also:
Williams & Ravenscroft, 2015). They contend that while it has
ousted social accounting fromits earlier position close to the centre
of the reporting process to one where it now appears in stark
contrast to ‘mainstream’ accounting, few academic efforts have
emerged to problematize this trend from an accounting for social
sustainability perspective. They are perplexed by this lack of
meaningful researcher engagement with the Conceptual Frame-
work project and contend that researchers interested in accounting
for social sustainability do not seem to fully realise the potentially
fundamental contribution that they could make to such debates.
This is the form of engagement that Hopwood encouraged, aspired
to, and participated in, albeit in the broader context of seeking
greater examinations of accounting and the social, and accounting
in action.
In our call for enhanced theorized engagement we query Gray's
(2002) concern to establish a greater meta-theory for social ac-
counting. All theory is an abstraction or simpli?cation of reality,
that we can use as a tool to better understand and analyse complex
problems (Chapman, 2015). Given the considerable breadth and
depth of complexity underlying accounting for sustainability
(Bebbington & Larrinaga, 2014), we are concerned that a meta-
theory that attempted to simplify across this vast array of com-
plex issues would have very little practical utility in helping to
advance rigorous research insights. Rather, we contend that in light
of this complexity we need a range of speci?c re?ned theories, each
providing a simpli?cation of a speci?c aspect of this complexity, to
help us transform accounting for social sustainability data into
robust evidence to in?uence policy and practice. This focused
theorisation could develop what Lukka and Vinnari (2014) refer to
as ‘domain theories’ in the ?eld of accounting for social sustain-
ability aimed at developing speci?c sets of knowledge on the sub-
stantive areas underpinning accounting for social sustainability.
These domain theories could then interact with broader more ab-
stract theoretical lenses (‘method theories’) drawn from other
?elds such as organization studies or sociology that are speci?cally
aligned with the issue(s) being studied (see: Lukka & Vinnari, 2014,
p. 1330). A meta-theory is, we believe, too blunt an analytical tool if
we want to draw reliable evidence from messy, complex and un-
predictable data e and could potentially act to counter any possible
attempts to encourage a sense of re?exivity, invention and open-
ness to surprises in these research endeavours.
This re?exivity and invention is partly illustrated by the range of
unique empirical and theoretical insights from papers in the recent
AOS special section which illuminate how case study approaches
can unveil surprises within empirical domains (see: Locke, 2011). It
seems to us almost impossible to conceive of a broad common
meta-theory that would have enabled the deep insights to be
developed from this disparate range of empirical situations. It is
important, however, to highlight that while we advocate theoret-
ical variety, we are not advocating theoretical ‘gap spotting’
research setting up some implicit competition between theories in
terms of how they develop understandings (see: Alvesson &
Sandberg, 2011). Moreover, we advocate greater problematization
of the assumptions underlying existing theories, which has rather
belatedly arrived in the emerging (often implicit) dismissal of crude
conceptions of legitimacy theory (and it variants) in recent work on
accounting for social sustainability in AOS. Overall, we recommend
a cumulative theorization of ‘accounting in action’ in the realm of
accounting for social sustainability in a wider variety of organiza-
tional contexts drawing on and, where possible, integrating a range
of theories. It is through this greater theoretical sophistication
enrolled in analysing and interpreting data on the roles of ac-
counting in social sustainability that we contend that AOS can best
continue nurturing the development of research projects in this
area of policy and practice. This effective use of nuanced theory to
help capture and analyse a range of evidence on accounting for
social sustainability can help to provide further rigorous answers to
rigorous, well-justi?ed, research questions in this area.
Acknowledgements
We are very grateful to Jan Bebbington, Christopher Chapman,
David Cooper, Kari Lukka, and to participants at the Accounting,
Organizations and Society 40th Anniversary Workshop hosted by
the London School of Economics and Political Science in May 2015
and at the CSEAR France conference at ESSEC Business School in
June 2015 for their invaluable comments on earlier drafts of this
paper.
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Please cite this article in press as: O'Dwyer, B., & Unerman, J., Fostering rigour in accounting for social sustainability, Accounting, Organizations
and Society (2015),http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.aos.2015.11.003
doc_447101913.pdf
This paper illuminates how a journal and its editor can initiate and foster a stream of high quality and
influential research in a novel area. It does this by analysing Accounting, Organizations and Society's
(AOS's) and Anthony Hopwood's nurturing of research into key aspects of accounting for social sustainability
for several decades before this research area became established. Our discussion unveils how
the initiation of unique research areas may initially involve the publication of risky papers driven primarily
by passion. Through the steering of a journal editor, subsequent work can proceed to combine this
passion with academic rigour and produce research insights that can benefit society by positively
influencing policy and practice. It is this attention to rigour that we argue needs to be central to future
research in accounting for social sustainability (and accounting for sustainability more broadly) if it is to
continue producing purposeful knowledge. We offer several substantive directions for future research
aimed at producing such knowledge.
Fostering rigour in accounting for social sustainability
Brendan O'Dwyer
a, *
, Jeffrey Unerman
b
a
University of Amsterdam Business School, The Netherlands
b
School of Management, Royal Holloway, University of London, England, United Kingdom
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 9 July 2015
Accepted 13 November 2015
Available online xxx
a b s t r a c t
This paper illuminates how a journal and its editor can initiate and foster a stream of high quality and
in?uential research in a novel area. It does this by analysing Accounting, Organizations and Society's
(AOS's) and Anthony Hopwood's nurturing of research into key aspects of accounting for social sus-
tainability for several decades before this research area became established. Our discussion unveils how
the initiation of unique research areas may initially involve the publication of risky papers driven pri-
marily by passion. Through the steering of a journal editor, subsequent work can proceed to combine this
passion with academic rigour and produce research insights that can bene?t society by positively
in?uencing policy and practice. It is this attention to rigour that we argue needs to be central to future
research in accounting for social sustainability (and accounting for sustainability more broadly) if it is to
continue producing purposeful knowledge. We offer several substantive directions for future research
aimed at producing such knowledge.
© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
This paper aims to illuminate howa journal and its editor can be
in?uential in fostering a stream of high quality and in?uential
research in a novel area. It does this by analysing Accounting, Or-
ganizations and Society's (AOS's) fostering of research into aspects of
accounting for sustainability across several decades. An important
element in AOS's encouragement of research in this area was the
risks its founding editor, Anthony Hopwood, was willing to take in
supporting innovative accounting for sustainability research e as
part of his ambition to re-de?ne the intellectual landscape of ac-
counting (see: Chapman, Cooper, & Miller, 2009).
Given the breadth of issues underlying accounting for sustain-
ability, to provide a suf?ciently narrow analytical focus for this
paper we examine the role of AOS in nurturing a research stream
seeking to enhance social sustainability through examination of the
democratic functioning of information ?ows to stakeholders other
than providers of ?nancial capital. Cooper and Morgan (2013)
explain that literature in this ?eld recognises that accounting
(including corporate reporting) in?uences the culture of society,
especially what is seen as important in society and for what
organizations are understood to be responsible and accountable.
This domain affords primacy to a notion of the public interest that
extends beyond the needs of capital providers in discussions of
accounting and reporting, through examining and seeking to
design reporting that addresses issues of stewardship in corporate
accountability (Harte & Owen, 1987; Owen, 1990). Although AOS
and Hopwood also supported the development of research in other
areas of accounting for sustainability (such as environmental ac-
counting), it is through this particular aspect of social sustainability
that this paper highlights the manner in which a journal and its
editor can nurture, in?uence and help shape a novel ?eld of
research.
We recognize that journals other than AOS also have long track
records of proactive and effective support for research into these
issues (for example: Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal,
Critical Perspectives on Accounting, Social and Environmental
Accountability Journal and Accounting Forum). However, as this pa-
per does not aim to provide a comprehensive literature review of
the area of social sustainability upon which we focus, but rather to
examine the manner in which a journal and its editor can in?uence
the development of a research area, we consider a focus on key
papers published in AOS to be appropriate. We do, however,
recognize that a limitation of this paper is that we do not have
space to discuss in?uential papers published in other journals (see,
for example: Bebbington & Gray, 2001; Gray, Dey, Owen, Evans, &
Zadek, 1997; Neu, Cooper, & Everett, 2001; Tinker, Lehman, &
* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: [email protected] (B. O'Dwyer), [email protected].
uk (J. Unerman).
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Accounting, Organizations and Society
j ournal homepage: www. el sevi er. com/ l ocat e/ aoshttp://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.aos.2015.11.003
0361-3682/© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Accounting, Organizations and Society xxx (2015) 1e9
Please cite this article in press as: O'Dwyer, B., & Unerman, J., Fostering rigour in accounting for social sustainability, Accounting, Organizations
and Society (2015),http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.aos.2015.11.003
Neimark, 1991) which we would have addressed had this paper
taken the form of a more broadly-based comprehensive literature
review of the ?eld of accounting for social sustainability.
As in other areas of accounting (and broader social science)
research, insights from accounting for sustainability research have
had the potential to provide a robust evidence base upon which
more effective policies and practices can be developed (Unerman &
Chapman, 2014). This in?uence has been realised where such
research has been underpinned by a commitment to rigour. While
much of the recent expansion of accounting for sustainability
research exhibits this commitment, we argue that this needs to
become more widespread. As Gray (2002) noted when reviewing
the smaller earlier body of social and environmental accounting
research from the late 20th century, accounting for sustainability
research needs to be continually wary of combining too much
apparent passion with too little rigour.
While progress requires that there must always be scope for
individual researchers to motivate a community of researchers to
focus on novel research problems, researchers who are passion-
ately interested in a novel issue also need to demonstrate that the
issue is non-trivial and of broader interest and relevance before
developing a research programme to address it. So, while passion
can be very effective at motivating an array of research questions, a
?lter needs to be applied in deciding which of these questions are
reasonably justi?able to pursue. As an example of research issues
which we have recently seen in accounting for social sustainability
that we do not regard as having successfully passed through this
?lter: where individual organizations do not have a material re-
sponsibility for a particular sustainability issue, there is little merit
in undertaking research into organizational management or
discharge of accountabilities for this issue (Unerman & Zappettini,
2014). Conversely, in the conclusions to this paper we highlight
some novel substantive issues which could form the basis of future
research programmes.
Once appropriate research questions have been established,
they need to be addressed in a dispassionately rigorous manner.
They cannot simply be driven by a priori judgements on what the
answers should be e where evidence could be drawn upon selec-
tively to give a desired answer. As Neu et al. (2001, p. 740) warn us:
“with only a concern for the ends, any means [can] be justi?ed”.
Where research is not “based on sound argument, reasoning and
demonstration” (Neu et al., 2001, p. 740), at best it will be ignored
and will thereby miss an opportunity to in?uence developments in
policy and practice. At worst, it will be taken up by policy makers
and practitioners and have an adverse in?uence on the resulting
policies and practices, and risk damaging the reputation of the
academic community.
Motivating research questions within the speci?c area of social
sustainability that this paper focuses on, the literature identi?es
four core principles: human well-being, equality, democratic gov-
ernment, and democratic society (Magis & Shinn, 2009). In practice
at the organizational level, these four principles are manifest in
issues such as fairness in distribution and opportunity, adequate
provision of social services, including health and education, gender
equity, and political accountability and participation (Dillard,
Dujon, & King, 2009). Among the major issues arising for organi-
zations with respect to these aspects of social sustainability,
therefore, are their interactions with employees, suppliers, com-
munities and consumers. These include employment terms and
conditions, union recognition and interactions, supply chain im-
pacts such as human rights abuses in supply chains, impacts on
communities comprising health impacts, displacement of com-
munities, socioeconomic impacts when organizations leave com-
munities, and consumer impacts such as product safety and
responsible advertising (Bebbington & Dillard, 2009, p. 158). The
early work in AOS we revisit in this paper pays particular attention
to a small selection of these themes, especially as they relate to
(reporting to) employees and communities. Research questions in
this early work were constructed from perceived ‘real world
problems’ (see: Alvesson & Sandberg, 2011, 2013) surrounding the
nature of corporate reporting.
We complement our analysis of insights from papers and de-
bates published in AOS that profoundly in?uenced our under-
standing with an explanation of some of Hopwood's interactions
with policy and practice in accounting for (social) sustainability. We
thereby re?ect not only on the development and in?uence of
themes surrounding speci?c aspects of accounting for social sus-
tainability underlying key papers published in AOS, but also on
Hopwood's in?uence on both academic work and public policy in
this area. We subsequently drawon both these elements to provide
an informed, albeit personal, view of fruitful future directions for
research in this area.
Before examining some of the signi?cant insights published in
AOS, we explore the context within which the journal nurtured this
strand of research. In so doing, we explain the in?uence of two
early papers e one polemic on accounting and social sustainability
published in the ?rst volume of AOS (Medawar, 1976) and a later
paper that, while not speci?cally focused on issues of social sus-
tainability, we regard to be key in adding renewed academic rigour
to research studies examining issues in this area (Cooper & Sherer,
1984). We also explain Hopwood's fostering of research in this area
e through insights from his key editorials that addressed ‘ac-
counting and sustainability’ and through his policy work around
accounting for sustainability.
2. Setting the AOS agenda and challenge on accounting for
social sustainability
Contributions to learned journals traditionally mark their work
by the self-denying use of pronouns (to denote objectivity) and
by the inclusion of suitably humble, and sometimes unctuous,
acknowledgements to the effect that the presence, or even the
bias, of the observer might possibly have in?uenced the course
of the events being described. I shall depart fromthis tradition. I
want to emphasise that my colleagues and I at Social Audit are
biased e and that that bias underpins our interest in our work.
(Medawar, 1976, p. 389).
The quotation above is taken from a short paper by Charles
Medawar (1976) published in the ?rst volume of AOS which
signi?ed an explicit beginning for AOS as a journal in which ac-
counting for social sustainability was set up for examination (see
also, Hopwood, 1978a). Medawar's paper proved inspirational for a
set of papers elucidating themes of critical engagement, stake-
holder accountability, and public policy impact.
We consider Medawar's paper to be an essential entry point to
our review for a number of reasons. First, it is a polemic which is
highly normative and does not make explicit use of theory, other
than a broad conception of social accountability as “a process in
which those within corporate bodies, with decision making
powers, propose, explain and justify the use of those powers to
those without” (Medawar, 1976, p. 393). Hence, it is an agenda-
setting paper driven more by passion than academic rigour, and
would likely not be published in a leading academic journal in to-
day's academic environment (see: Hopwood, 2007; Humphrey &
Gendron, 2015). Second, it focuses on assessing and enabling
democratic ideals which are central to our interpretation of ac-
counting for social sustainability. Third, Medawar perceives a
limited role for accountants (and accounting academics) in ful?lling
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and Society (2015),http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.aos.2015.11.003
these ideals through forms of social accounting and social audit, a
position he reiterated nine years later in private correspondence
with Hopwood (Hopwood, 1985). He regarded accountants as being
associated with quests for acceptable, objective and veri?able
measurement techniques and questioned the commitment of
accountancy and accountants to designing reporting mechanisms
in the public interest. Fourth, Medawar prioritised those who he
regarded as needing information rather than those who possessed
it, and argued that the bene?t of the doubt should be given to broad
stakeholder groups such as employees and local communities.
Through his polemic, Medawar, in effect, laid down a challenge in
AOS to accountants and accounting academics whom he did not
entirely trust to develop substantive and effective ‘social account-
ing’ (or accounting for society).
Medawar's paper was published in, and re?ective of, a particular
1970s
0
UK social and political context in which the need for and
means of reporting to employees and trade unions was being
actively considered and the broad concept of ‘social accounting’
was entering accounting discourse (Burchell, Clubb, & Hopwood,
1985). Tricker (1975) placed accounting ?rmly within this social
and political context in his call for the major UK research funding
body, the SSRC (Social Science Research Council), to support
research examining the changing social context of accounting e
given that accounting practice in the UK was becoming central to
many prominent national policy debates (Hopwood, 1985).
Accounting in?uences at this time within the UK ranged from
discussions surrounding in?ation accounting to the publication of
The Corporate Report which advocated stewardship as an important
aspect of the ‘public accountability’ of organizations. The Corporate
Report articulated a need to broaden the scope and nature of
corporate reporting, through, inter alia, the publication of value-
added statements showing how the bene?ts and efforts of an en-
terprise were shared between employees, capital providers, the
state and reinvestment (Burchell et al., 1985, p. 386). Its contro-
versial recommendations about expanding reporting scope were
largely accepted by the UK government e despite the protestations
of the accounting profession eand by the late 1970s more than 20%
of UK companies were producing value-added statements (Burchell
et al., 1985).
The SSRC also set up a committee to advance the understanding
of the social and political nature of accounting and the social
relevance and usefulness of accounting practice (see, Hopwood,
1985). While the committee did not produce a ?nal report,
Hopwood's, 1985 AOS paper re?ecting on the committee's de-
liberations indicated that such a report would have contained a key
recommendation that the SSRC should commission engagement-
focused ‘action research’. Much of this would examine the actual
(and potential) use of accounting data within social and political
contexts, particularly with respect to attempts to relate extensions
in accounting practice to the furtherance of a range of social
interests.
This resonates with the theme of Medawar's (1976) AOS polemic
on social accounting. Given Medawar's normative orientation and
lack of explicit theorization, his paper was a testament to the early
publication risks AOS was willing to take and to the attention that
Hopwood devoted to alternative thinking about the role of and
relationship between accounting and the social. Medawar's paper
also indicated, albeit implicitly, certain key themes that scholars
writing in AOS would soon seriously address: a broad conception of
accountability focused on the information needs of employees and
local communities, the centrality of critical engagement, and the
signi?cance of seeking policy impact.
Cooper and Sherer (1984) echoed Medawar's call for “the crea-
tion of accountings that [we]re valuable in society” (p. 208) and for
a greater understanding of accounting in the context of the social,
political and economic environment in which it operated (p. 225;
see also, Tinker, 1980). They critiqued the economic consequences
analysis approach to understanding and valuing the role of ac-
counting reports in a broader societal context, as they regarded this
approach as being overly ?xated on the consequences of the reports
for the behaviour and interests of the shareholder and/or corporate
manager, while largely ignoring users such as employees, trade
unions and governments. Cooper and Sherer (1984) were also early
proponents of direct engagement research, aimed at countering the
limited evidence in the literature concerning the way managers
actually arrived at their attitudes or decisions (p. 216), a concern
that pervaded Hopwood's early writings in AOS (see: Burchell,
Clubb, Hopwood, & Nahapiet, 1980; Hopwood, 1976, 1978b, 1983,
1985, 1987).
Their urging for researchers to be explicitly normative,
descriptive and critical is to us one of the core clarion calls to those
researching accounting for social sustainability. Key aspects of
these themes pervaded some early pioneering AOS papers in ac-
counting for social sustainability by Harte and Owen (1987) and
Owen and Lloyd (1985), and were also evident in Cooper and Essex
(1977) prior to Cooper & Sherer's, 1984 paper.
We revisit these early papers below, which mobilised Med-
awar's call for a reporting focus on the information needs of groups
other than shareholders, and prioritised engagement-based
research partially focused on articulating public policy recom-
mendations. Before moving on to consider the contributions of
these papers, we brie?y highlight key elements of Hopwood's long-
standing commitment to developing policy in this area. This
commitment helps provide additional context to understand the
commitment of AOS to developing and nurturing this strand of
research.
2.1. Policy commitment and editorial steering
Hopwood's support for the development of accounting for social
sustainability was evident both in his writings and editorial actions
in the early days of AOS. It was also manifest in his engagement
with policy bodies. For example, he was later a board member of
the Prince of Wales's Accounting for Sustainability Project (A4S),
which sought to develop mechanisms to help organizations embed
connected understandings and appreciations of sustainability in
their decision-making and reporting. A4S explicitly recognized
three main elements to long-term sustainability: social, environ-
mental and economic. A key feature of A4S was an attempt to use
reporting to instigate some formof organizational and public policy
change ea feature that resonated with the aims of Medawar (1976)
and Cooper and Sherer (1984) (and Harte and Owen (1987) and
Owen and Lloyd (1985) as discussed below). In arguing for the
interconnectedness between and importance of these three ele-
ments, Hopwood's in?uence and insights into the importance of
social sustainability were evident. This was the latest of his active
encouragements for the development of public policy that helped
develop the roles of accounting in enhancing social sustainability.
In light of Hopwood's concern to encourage studies of ac-
counting in action, at the beginning of 2009 A4S commissioned a
research project comprising in-depth case studies of the way eight
large public and private sector organizations had engaged with the
principles and practices underlying Accounting for Sustainability
(including A4S's Connected Reporting Framework). In initiating this
project, Hopwood yet again demonstrated his belief in, and
commitment to, engagement with policy and practice as a way to
help improve the sustainability of the social world and the
environment.
Although the Accounting for Sustainability case studies had
been motivated by a desire to use academic expertise to provide a
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and Society (2015),http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.aos.2015.11.003
robust, while accessible, evidence base to further policy and prac-
tice, Hopwood was also concerned to use the insights to advance
the academic literature. He therefore decided to use a later special
section in AOS to publish explicitly and robustly theorized insights
from the case study work. The special section was published in AOS
in 2014, some years after Hopwood's’ untimely death, but as a
?tting tribute to his in?uence in advancing research in this area e
and to his long-standing commitment to and steering of this strand
of research in AOS. We nowturn to an exploration of the AOS papers
we consider to have been core to this unfolding strand of research.
3. Assessing stewardship and facilitating employee decision
making
A focus on the information needs of user groups other than
shareholders, especially employees and trade unions, pervaded
Cooper and Essex (1977). They argued that ‘accounting should not
develop in isolation from society’ (p. 202) and were positively
assertive, in contrast to Medawar (1976), about the role accountants
could and should play in identifying union and employee decision
models which could contribute to employee welfare.
1
They argued,
however, that employees' and unions' own perceived needs for
information should not be prioritised, but that a decision-
orientated approach focusing on the decisions that these users
should be taking needed to be developed. Only then, they claimed,
could the information that was actually needed be considered, as
this could then be matched with the decision models that, for
example, employee representatives should be using. Hence, user
needs as opposed to wants were to be prioritised.
An implicit plea for enhanced engagement was evident in their
call for research to observe the decision-making of employee rep-
resentatives. This was consistent with their concern to encourage
the reporting of relevant information as, without relevance, the
information reported might only allowmarginal adjustments to the
status quo. Moreover, they suggested that accountants should
become involved in producing reports relevant for decisions about
an enterprise rather than just reports on an enterprise.
Harte and Owen (1987) developed the theme of engagement
and the focus on employee users of corporate reports in their ef-
forts to establish a normative framework for social cost analysis in
the context of de-industrialisation in the UK. They focused on local
governments in the UK as important users of corporate information
while lamenting the lack of accountability to workforces and local
communities when large-scale manufacturing industries were
closed down. They contended that it was an indictment of corpo-
rate reporting that accounting reports offered no indication of the
public costs of the unemployment created by plant closure decisions
e a major social sustainability issue. They elaborated on the
absence of ‘true accountability’ e also alluded to by Medawar
(1976) e because, while information provision could assist in
forming judgements, labour representatives also needed the power
to hold private enterprise to account. As existing legislation pre-
vented this possibility, they posited that local government could be
better able to exercise this power. Harte and Owen (1987) were
openly normative in arguing for the existence of a social contract
between local governments and business to support their case for
business to be held accountable to local communities when
divestment decisions were made. Their ‘true accountability’ notion
represented an explicit acknowledgement of a broader stewardship
role for accounting and accountants.
In formulating their recommendations, Harte and Owen (1987)
critically evaluated existing social cost analyses conducted by local
authorities in the wake of plant closures. While their analysis was
robust in the context of studies of the time, it did not explicitly
assemble theory to help understand why the practices were enac-
ted in the manner they were. However, their desire to pursue policy
impact was palpable in their critique and in their proposed
framework charting what they contended local authorities should
require from reporting on the social costs of closures. They
concurred with Cooper and Essex (1977) that reporting should
assist decisions about an enterprise rather than merely reporting on
an enterprise. Both papers acknowledged a broad decision-
usefulness role for reporting information while simultaneously
signalling a stewardship role.
These papers also encouraged enhanced researcher engage-
ment. Harte and Owen (1987) encouraged research examining
what local government sawas its role in relation to business during
a period of de-industrialisation in order to assist in developing a
detailed framework that they felt could then be tried and tested.
They refer to conversations they had with local government plan-
ning departments and, from these, derived four roles for social
accounting and reporting: a reactive role; a positive use role; a
regular monitoring role; and an educational use role. Cooper and
Essex (1977) argued that research should observe the decision-
making of employee representatives; a call consistent with their
concern to encourage a focus on the reporting of relevant
information.
In a related study, Owen and Lloyd (1985) examined the role of
?nancial information in company- and plant-level bargaining be-
tween managers and employees. They critiqued a tendency among
a suite of SSRC-funded studies to assume a universal ‘identikit’
employee representative in their consideration of the use of
(?nancial) information in company-employee bargaining pro-
cesses. With respect to the SSRC studies, they concluded that this
was surprising given that these studies comprised nuanced cases of
a form of ‘accounting in action’ in which the use of information in
company- and plant-level bargaining was studied. Hence, while
applauding the rich contextual detail of the SSRC studies (p.331),
they criticised the rather general nature of many of the studies'
conclusions. Moreover, they sought to address a key issue which
they felt these studies ignored: the reasons for the low rates of
utilisation of corporate ?nancial information by union negotiators.
Owen and Lloyd (1985) were critical of the normative approach
adopted by Cooper and Essex (1977) that sought to specify a uni-
versal decision model for union representatives. For them, this
represented a potentially fruitless search for universal objectives
given that many union/employee users differed in their objectives.
Cooper and Essex (1977) were accused of failing to develop their
arguments suf?ciently with respect to identifying exactly the
differing nature of employee representatives and the diverse
organizational contexts in which negotiations took place.
Owen and Lloyd (1985) offered a tentative analytical framework
designed to assist future researchers more rigorously consider the
contexts within which various trade union representatives used
?nancial information. This, they argued, would unlock research into
differing approaches to ?nancial information use by assorted union
representatives, a call McBarnet, Weston, and Whelan (1993)
responded to in AOS some years later. Owen and Lloyd's (1985)
explicit purpose was not only to contribute academically but to
also offer insights for policy development; a concern consistent
1
Rob Gray, Jan Bebbington and colleagues effectively countered many of Med-
awar's concerns in their extensive work exploring a social role for accounting (see,
for example: Gray et al., 1997; Bebbington & Gray, 2001; Bebbington & Larrinaga,
2014; Bebbington et al., 2007). David Cooper and colleagues such as Dean Neu,
through their activism and academic work have also issued effective (implicit) ri-
postes to Medawar's concerns about the trust that should be placed in accounting
academics. They have sought to integrate the theoretical and praxis components of
accounting scholarship by intervening in the public domain (see, for example:
Everett, Neu, Rahaman, & Maharaj, 2015; Neu et al., 2001).
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with the fact that by the time the paper was published, one of its
authors, Anthony Lloyd, was a UK Member of Parliament.
What these initial studies share is a commitment to expanding
the horizons of accounting to incorporate a speci?c aspect of ac-
counting for social sustainability e the nature and focus on
reporting by companies to employees or their representatives.
While not always explicitly stressed, engagement is emphasised
and the importance of holding managers to account predominates.
2
There is, however, also a decision-usefulness emphasis embedded
in this work, albeit one focused on a broad set of corporate stake-
holders. These studies were very much of their time: a UK eco-
nomic and political context infused with industrial con?ict. As
Hopwood (2005, 2007) later observed, these papers were largely
driven by passion characterised by commitment, raw curiosity and
a desire to ruf?e the conservative mainstream of accounting
research through prioritising the social functioning of accounting.
They sought to signi?cantly enhance our knowledge and stimulate
debate. The act of publishing was merely one part of a process ul-
timately aimed at a more holistically-oriented and rigorous devel-
opment of evidence and insights. The core impetus underpinning
this work was simultaneously sustained by a stream of AOS papers
authored by Hopwood and others exhorting a focus on ‘accounting
in action’ fuelled by methodological and theoretical innovation
(see, for example: Burchell et al., 1980; Hopwood, 1983, 1987; Miller
& O'Leary, 1987).
In the 15 years after the papers discussed above, there was a
notable absence of major work published in AOS that advanced the
speci?c themes developed in these papers (see, however, Lehman,
1999). The next key paper in AOS that we regard as directly
addressing these issues is a reviewpaper by Gray published in 2002
in which he, inter alia, addressed the possible reasons for this
absence.
4. Whither accountability, engagement and theory?
Re?ecting on absence in AOS
While, during the 1990s, some important work was published in
AOS examining aspects of accounting for environmental sustain-
ability (see: Gray, 1992; Neu, Warsame, & Pedwell, 1998;
Rubenstein, 1992) substantive work focusing /on accounting spe-
ci?cally for social sustainability was largely absent from the pages
of the journal for a considerable period. This absence was at a time
when social and organizational concerns for sustainability were
focused primarily on shorter-term economic sustainability, but also
with a small and growing emphasis on environmental sustain-
ability (with little explicit recognition of the social goals underlying
such economic and environmental sustainability). This was evident
in accounting and reporting practices that reported on economic
and environmental sustainability (Gray, 2002).
Gray (2002) re?ected on this absence in his review of what he
broadly termed ‘social accounting’ research. He regretted that very
fewof the themes of the early papers were taken forward by papers
in AOS. Gray also noted a continuance of what he termed ‘US-style
empiricism’ in social and environmental reporting papers pub-
lished in AOS from the mid-1980s to the early to mid-1990s, which
largely ignored wider user groups. He argued that the ‘social ac-
counting’ literature was failing as an academic endeavour due to its
underdeveloped theorization and preference for passion over
rigour, characteristics which he regarded as inevitably contributing
to its absence from the pages of AOS. However, an alternative
perspective on this absence could be that with few organizations
engaging in (speci?cally) social, rather than environmental,
reporting, or other accounting practices in this area, there was too
little contemporary empirical material or policy interest to provide
a substantive evidence base for rigorous research work of this na-
ture. Gray (2002) argued that possibly inappropriate criteria in
some journals might also hinder academic endeavour in areas
where there is little current practice to build upon.
Gray (2002) outlined a future focus for researchers aimed at
learning how to write and theorize engagement. However, his key
concern, an issue we will return to later, was the absence of a
greater meta-theory for ‘social accounting’ (p.703). He considered
this necessary in order to discover what it was that social ac-
counting scholars were really interested in and why. He also
appealed for social accounting to cease chasing the latest fad e at
this time, issues surrounding accounting and the physical envi-
ronment were prominent e and he asked: “whatever happened to
employees? Are they unimportant these days? I should have
thought not” (p.703). In making these calls, Gray reiterated the
hopes and aspirations expressed in the earlier papers by Owen and
Harte (1985), Owen and Lloyd (1985) and Cooper and Essex (1977).
5. A tentative evolution in theorized engagement
After Gray (2002), between 2002 and 2009 a number of ?eld
studies into accounting for social sustainability were published by
AOS. In adjacent journals such as such as Accounting, Auditing and
Accountability Journal (AAAJ) and Critical Perspectives on Accounting
(CPA), theorized engagement in this area also became more
prominent (see, for example: Bebbington, Brown, Frame, &
Thomson, 2007; Neu et al., 2001) and Gray's (2002) exhortations
were often enrolled in support of certain foci. The social sustain-
ability work appearing in AOS in this period was, however, some-
times not explicitly theorized (O'Dwyer, 2005) or was underpinned
by broad theorization mobilising overly general conceptions of
legitimacy (see, for example, Deegan & Blomquist, 2006). These
studies focused on the problems, both organizational and institu-
tional, of accounting for social sustainability and emphasised the
apparent impossibility of achieving Medawar's ambition of ‘true
accountability’ (Cooper &Owen, 2007; O'Dwyer, 2005). Little of the
positive, solution-oriented focus of Cooper and Essex (1977) and
Owen and Harte (1987) was evident.
During this period, Unerman and Bennett (2004) departed from
this trend. They mobilised Habermasian discourse ethics to offer a
theoretical model for determining corporate social, environmental,
economic and ethical responsibilities, thereby placing a simulta-
neous focus on organizational-stakeholder engagement. Unerman
and Bennett (2004) revisited the earlier theme of democratic
corporate accountability and assessed how features of the moral
consensus-building discourse criteria of an ideal speech situation
advocated by Habermas could be incorporated into stakeholder
engagement using the internet. Their assessment of the potential of
Shell's stakeholder dialogue ‘web forum’ to conform to this ideal
speech situation sought to produce practical policy insights, which
have subsequently become more pertinent with the evolution of
social media. The paper combined the engagement and public
policy focus of the earlier work by Harte and Owen (1987) and
Owen and Lloyd (1985). However, unlike this prior work, Unerman
and Bennett (2004) made explicit use of theory in a way that
enhanced the robustness of the insights and understanding they
2
The disclosure of ?nancial/accounting information to employees and trade
unions was an issue that engendered much debate in the pages of AOS around this
time. For example, while Ogden and Bougen (1985) outlined some negotiation
bene?ts for trade unions in using accounting information disclosed by manage-
ment, they also warned that unions needed to tread carefully as they would
“become exposed to the latent ideological conditioning such information entail
[ed]” (p. 222) and would enter a discourse that was exclusively managerial in its
rationale. Craft (1981) actually argued, albeit in a nuanced manner, that disclosure
to employees was often unwarranted and inappropriate.
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provided.
O'Dwyer (2005) developed the theme of stakeholder account-
ability in his in-depth ?eld study of a social accounting process in
an overseas aid agency. He highlighted the intense complexity and
petty politics involved in realising democratic ideals within these
processes. Consistent with Unerman and Bennett (2004), he un-
veiled the nature of the dif?culties less powerful stakeholders,
including employees, have in holding management to account,
especially when information is undisclosed or inherently ?awed.
However, while offering a rich case analysis, theorization in
O'Dwyer (2005) was largely implicit and represented something of
a missed opportunity to further develop many of the emerging
theoretical ideas introduced by Unerman and Bennett (2004).
Following on from Unerman and Bennett (2004), Cooper and
Owen (2007) drew, albeit tentatively, on Habermas's ideal speech
situation to evaluate the extent to which increased sustainability
reporting in the UK had operated to enhance “extra-corporeal”
accountability (Roberts, 2003) through empowering those most
vulnerable to the effects of corporate conduct. They cited Cooper
and Sherer (1984) in support of their avowedly normative stance
and articulated an ambition to advance public policy debate (p.
653). They reintroduced employees as a key reporting stakeholder
and, consistent with Cooper and Essex (1977) and Owen and Lloyd
(1985), focused on the effective utilization of information by
empowered employee recipients.
In a 2009 AOS editorial on accounting for sustainability,
Hopwood (2009) re?ected upon the role of A4S. He noted its
Connected Reporting Framework's efforts to move beyond a static
aim of merely reporting and to introduce a dynamic element into
organizational life. The Connected Reporting Framework sought to
stretch existing corporate policies and actions rather than radically
change them, a focus with which Medawar (1976) may not have
been entirely comfortable. Hopwood applauded this attempt to
integrate an explicit consideration of organizational change pro-
cesses into the design of a reporting system. While Cooper and
Essex (1977) and Harte and Owen (1987) sought to develop
decision-making frameworks aimed at assisting users such as
employees, Hopwood (2009) aimed at fostering the introduction of
new forms of information into organizational decision-making and
external reporting and therefore focused more explicitly on
shaping organizational behaviour in order to facilitate particular
user groups.
Our reading of Hopwood's 2009 editorial reinforces the view
that he had long been giving serious thought to issues surrounding
accounting for social sustainability. Similar to Gray (2002), with
whom he had corresponded while writing the editorial, he
expressed concern at the continuing absence of (theorized) ?eld
studies (although these were, by now, being published in other
journals such as AAAJ and CPA). He returned to the theme of
broader-based reporting prevalent in Cooper and Sherer (1984) and
Harte and Owen (1987), suggesting that this remained an area in
urgent need of more research e especially as reporting could
actually reduce what was known about a company and its activities,
thereby acting as a form of corporate veil (p. 437). Consistent with
Medawar (1976), Cooper and Essex (1977) and Harte and Owen
(1987) he sought relevant information and preferred to focus on
those who needed information rather than those who possessed it.
5.1. Theorized engagement and public policy impotence
Subsequent to Hopwood (2009), Archel, Husillos, and Spence
(2011) took up the mantle of Owen and Lloyd (1985), Harte and
Owen (1987) and Cooper and Essex (1977). They did this through
their case study of a government-initiated stakeholder consultation
process in Spain designed to propose measures aimed at
stimulating responsible and sustainable business behaviour and
reporting. Participants included NGOs, publicly listed companies,
academics and trade unions. While the consultation process did not
have the exclusive employee focus of Harte and Owen (1987) and
the other earlier studies, it contained many of their core in-
gredients. For example, one of the consultations comprised a
tripartite forum of government representatives, Spain's most
in?uential employer's association, and the two largest Spanish
trade unions. Archel et al. (2011), while not citing any of the earlier
relevant AOS papers discussed above, adopted many of their tenets.
They also re?ected the changing institutional context within which
issues surrounding accounting for social sustainability were now
being discussed.
While the early papers by Harte and Owen (1987) and Owen and
Lloyd (1985) sought to improve engagement processes and the
reporting and decision-making therein, Archel et al.'s (2011)
theoretically informed analysis led to the conclusion that efforts
of this nature were futile in the Spanish context. Their analysis
illustrated how stakeholder consultations legitimated dominant,
business-as-usual discourses on corporate social responsibility (see
also, Malsch, 2013). Harte and Owen (1987) and Owen and Lloyd
(1985) had attributed signi?cant agency to trade unions in effec-
tively invoking change through engagement that drew on the
disclosure of relevant information, admittedly at a time when, and
in a context where, they were much more powerful. In contrast,
Archel et al. (2011) accused the trade unions they studied of acting
in concert with the corporate sector and effectively silencing voices
from civil society, thereby leaving civil society without any coun-
tervailing power to unite around. They also argued that the unions
played a role in institutionalising a CSR discourse contradicting the
interests of civil society and, in the long term, the interests of their
own membership. Given the non-mandatory nature of the pro-
posals emerging fromthe consultation process studied, Archel et al.
(2011) deemed it unlikely that other civil society groups would be
able to hold corporations to account even if stakeholder consulta-
tion processes were improved. They advanced the accounting for
social sustainability literature through their rigorous use and
development of theory, their focus on contemporary engagement
practices, and, in particular, their insights on the institutional
context examined. While they made a signi?cant contribution to
advancing the literature, their conclusions shared with Gray (2010)
a viewthat accounting for social (and environmental) sustainability
was a futile practice. This mobilised their apparently ?rm a priori
normative view that any engagement with the corporate sector
would inevitably be captured and would consequently fail to
further social sustainability.
5.2. Theorized engagement: contesting calls for greater meta-
theory
After the above papers, the next work published in AOS specif-
ically focused on accounting for social sustainability was in the
2014 special section on Accounting for Sustainability (see also:
Nicholls, 2009, 2010). In their agenda-setting introduction to the
special section, Unerman and Chapman (2014) argue that some
academics seem to believe there to be a risk that the kind of in-
tellectual investment necessary to understand theory is perceived
as a distraction from important and practically relevant work; a
concern implicit in Gray's (2002) earlier review. However, as the
Accounting for Sustainability research project revealed, this is a
fallacy and theorized engagement of the social should take centre
place in the accounting for social sustainability literature if the
academy is to provide answers to socially signi?cant research
questions.
In the 2014 special section, rigour through theoretically
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informed analysis of engagement, stewardship and transparency
was prevalent. Spence and Rinaldi (2014) examined accounting-
based decision-making mechanisms designed to enhance sustain-
ability management and social responsibility among organizations
in a supply chain, a central social sustainability issue. Thomson,
Grubnic, and Georgakopoulos (2014) sought to understand how
government policies aimed at enhancing sustainability and
improving social justice in the delivery of public services were
fostered. Studies that focused on reporting information were also
infused with an engagement intent. For example, Contrafatto
(2014) examined and theorized the process through which sus-
tainability reporting became institutionalized in an Italian
company.
As Unerman and Chapman (2014) highlighted, the theoretical
depth and diversity displayed in papers in the special section, allied
to the rich, nuanced empirical observations of engagement, rep-
resented both an important contribution to advancing academic
insights around the roles of accounting in sustainable development
(including issues of social sustainability) and demonstrated ways in
which in-depth, focused and tailored theorization can help to
advance these insights. Having demonstrated this pathway to the
provision of original and rigorous insights on accounting for social
sustainability, we might then expect future studies to further
develop sophistication in the use of in-depth theorizations to help
advance policy and practice in this area. Within the concluding
section of this paper, we propose some major areas where we
envisage future high quality academic studies into the roles of ac-
counting in social sustainability could help advance policy and
practice.
6. Concluding thoughts e from retrospective to prospective
This paper has sought to elucidate how a journal and its editor
can nurture a stream of high quality and in?uential research in a
novel area. It has done this by analysing AOS's and Hopwood's
nurturing of research into certain aspects of accounting for social
sustainability for several decades before this research area became
widespread. Our discussion reveals how the instigation of novel
research areas may initially involve the publication of risky papers
driven primarily by passion. Guided by a journal editor, subsequent
work then needs to combine this passion with academic rigour to
yield research insights that advance society by progressively
shaping policy and practice. It is this concern for rigour that we
contend needs to continue to be central to research in accounting
for social sustainability if purposeful knowledge is to be produced
(see also: Alvesson & Sandberg, 2013; Flyvbjerg, 2001). In the
remainder of the paper we offer our perspective on what we see as
some key aspects of this future research focus.
Recent work in AOS has begun to address both Hopwood's
(2009) and Gray's (2002) pleas for theorized engagement, albeit
with greater attention being afforded to environmental as opposed
to social sustainability. Despite this, numerous issues central to
social sustainability, such as reporting on human rights, supply
chain abuses, and fair trade, have received limited attention in AOS.
Recent accounting for social sustainability work in AOS has started
to move the focus of attention away from reporting on social sus-
tainability per se and more towards the processes through which
reporting evolves and is used by stakeholder groups, as well as
other aspects of accounting for social sustainability. We concur
with both Hopwood's (2009) and Gray's (2002) contention that
further high quality ?eld work is vital to advancing the study of
accounting for social sustainability, especially work focused on
understanding the ‘real world problems’ that Alvesson and
Sandberg (2011, 2013) claim management research has largely
neglected.
However, we share concerns that much research into account-
ing for social sustainability continues to consider motives for
reporting among listed companies. While the theorization under-
pinning these motives has evolved and become more nuanced, we
question whether additional theoretical explanations of these
motives are actually adding signi?cantly to our understanding, or if
this research stream has largely exhausted the possibility of
unveiling further compelling insights, with little potential for
rigorously informed and well-justi?ed research questions. We
would argue that there is more potential around questions about
how this reporting is constructed and used in a wide variety of
organizational contexts and about non-reporting aspects of ac-
counting for social sustainability. This latter area of questioning
includes the roles accounting can play in embedding considerations
underlying social sustainability into organizational decision-
making at strategic, tactical and operational levels (see,
Bebbington & Thomson, 2013).
Many of the more innovative and productive examples of ac-
counting for social sustainability may also well be emerging else-
where than in listed company contexts such as the public sector, co-
operatives, social enterprises, NGOs, and employee-owned com-
panies like John Lewis in the UK. The recent innovation in the US
and Europe of B Corporations (or Bene?t Corporations) that are
mandated to pursue both shareholder wealth maximisation and
altruistic social goals under a statutory framework (see: Hiller,
2013) represents an intriguing context within which to extend
research questions to hybrid organizational forms.
3
B Corporation
statutes have opened up a space for social enterprises to legally
articulate a dual mission, thereby implying that the nature and
process of their reporting and its impacts on wider stakeholders
should be of considerable research interest, particularly from an
accountability and decision-making perspective.
Studying reporting and decision-making experiments among B
Corporations has the potential to open up unique new examples of
‘accounting for social sustainability in action’, particularly where
organizational logics are likely to collide, as well as guiding future
reporting developments in accounting for social sustainability in
conventional corporations. Addressing research questions about
these new organizational contexts will help us understand better
how diverse organizations seek to account for issues of social
sustainability and how their frequently broader user base engages
with this accounting. This would also facilitate greater use of
comparative studies examining how and why various forms of ac-
counting for social sustainability proliferate and how these prac-
tices are in?uenced by prevailing institutional environments,
thereby enhancing inter-organizational theorizing. Themes of
engagement should also drive studies of how stakeholder groups
such as social movements, trade unions and think tanks are using
social sustainability information to construct their own accounts,
and with what effects (see: O'Sullivan & O'Dwyer, 2015). This focus
on those who are perceived to need information is what initially
inspired Medawar (1976), while the potential use of corporate
reporting by non-shareholder groups stimulated Cooper and Essex
(1977) and Harte and Owen (1987) to advance frameworks and
models to guide employee groups. Future research could address
questions such as what strategies and framings these groups are
nowmobilising to ensure improved disclosure, and to what ends (if
any) this disclosure has been used.
The scope of analysis among research projects in accounting for
social sustainability also needs to be expanded beyond individual
organizations. Medawar (1976) questioned the credentials and
commitment of accountants to designing reporting mechanisms in
3
See:http://www.bcorporation.net/. Last accessed November 2nd 2015.
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the public interest while Cooper and Essex (1977) endorsed them.
In the four decades since Medawar's paper was published there has
been extensive evidence that the public interest has been under-
mined by concerns to promote commercialism within professional
services ?rms and the accounting profession (see: Malsch &
Gendron, 2013; Muzio, Brock, & Suddaby, 2013). We need more
in-depth studies of how the profession and its constituent profes-
sional bodies have mobilised around accounting for social sus-
tainability and how this has been attached to claims to represent
the public interest. The accounting profession has been active in
promoting variants of sustainability reporting and, more recently,
‘connected’ and ‘integrated’ reporting. However, we have limited
robust evidence about how these bodies have constructed and
mobilised their engagement in the development of these new
reporting forms.
Research projects also need to encompass an examination of
how con?icting framings may underpin different professional ac-
counting bodies' efforts to promote reporting on social sustain-
ability. Of interest here would be comparisons of the way in which
professional accounting bodies frame their engagement with core
aspects of social sustainability such as human rights, supply chain
management and employee health and safety. Moreover, as many
academics have been engaging with these professional bodies on
these reporting evolutions over a long period, the construction of
accounts of these engagements would help further develop Hop-
wood's earlier accounts of his own extensive engagement efforts as
well as allowing for re?ection on the extent to which the public
policy impacts Hopwood aspired to are being realised.
A recent AOS paper by Murphy, O'Connell, and
O h
Ogartaigh
(2013) pondered why academics studying accounting for social
sustainability have neglected to undertake any active engagement
in the development of the Conceptual Framework for ?nancial
reporting. The initial papers we review in this essay supported a
broader conception of corporate reporting user groups than advo-
cated within the IASB/FASB joint conceptual framework project.
Murphy et al. (2013) argue that a narrowing of the de?nition of user
groups and a simultaneous downgrading of the stewardship
concept has had profound implications for the study of accounting
for social sustainability in a ?nancial reporting context (see also:
Williams & Ravenscroft, 2015). They contend that while it has
ousted social accounting fromits earlier position close to the centre
of the reporting process to one where it now appears in stark
contrast to ‘mainstream’ accounting, few academic efforts have
emerged to problematize this trend from an accounting for social
sustainability perspective. They are perplexed by this lack of
meaningful researcher engagement with the Conceptual Frame-
work project and contend that researchers interested in accounting
for social sustainability do not seem to fully realise the potentially
fundamental contribution that they could make to such debates.
This is the form of engagement that Hopwood encouraged, aspired
to, and participated in, albeit in the broader context of seeking
greater examinations of accounting and the social, and accounting
in action.
In our call for enhanced theorized engagement we query Gray's
(2002) concern to establish a greater meta-theory for social ac-
counting. All theory is an abstraction or simpli?cation of reality,
that we can use as a tool to better understand and analyse complex
problems (Chapman, 2015). Given the considerable breadth and
depth of complexity underlying accounting for sustainability
(Bebbington & Larrinaga, 2014), we are concerned that a meta-
theory that attempted to simplify across this vast array of com-
plex issues would have very little practical utility in helping to
advance rigorous research insights. Rather, we contend that in light
of this complexity we need a range of speci?c re?ned theories, each
providing a simpli?cation of a speci?c aspect of this complexity, to
help us transform accounting for social sustainability data into
robust evidence to in?uence policy and practice. This focused
theorisation could develop what Lukka and Vinnari (2014) refer to
as ‘domain theories’ in the ?eld of accounting for social sustain-
ability aimed at developing speci?c sets of knowledge on the sub-
stantive areas underpinning accounting for social sustainability.
These domain theories could then interact with broader more ab-
stract theoretical lenses (‘method theories’) drawn from other
?elds such as organization studies or sociology that are speci?cally
aligned with the issue(s) being studied (see: Lukka & Vinnari, 2014,
p. 1330). A meta-theory is, we believe, too blunt an analytical tool if
we want to draw reliable evidence from messy, complex and un-
predictable data e and could potentially act to counter any possible
attempts to encourage a sense of re?exivity, invention and open-
ness to surprises in these research endeavours.
This re?exivity and invention is partly illustrated by the range of
unique empirical and theoretical insights from papers in the recent
AOS special section which illuminate how case study approaches
can unveil surprises within empirical domains (see: Locke, 2011). It
seems to us almost impossible to conceive of a broad common
meta-theory that would have enabled the deep insights to be
developed from this disparate range of empirical situations. It is
important, however, to highlight that while we advocate theoret-
ical variety, we are not advocating theoretical ‘gap spotting’
research setting up some implicit competition between theories in
terms of how they develop understandings (see: Alvesson &
Sandberg, 2011). Moreover, we advocate greater problematization
of the assumptions underlying existing theories, which has rather
belatedly arrived in the emerging (often implicit) dismissal of crude
conceptions of legitimacy theory (and it variants) in recent work on
accounting for social sustainability in AOS. Overall, we recommend
a cumulative theorization of ‘accounting in action’ in the realm of
accounting for social sustainability in a wider variety of organiza-
tional contexts drawing on and, where possible, integrating a range
of theories. It is through this greater theoretical sophistication
enrolled in analysing and interpreting data on the roles of ac-
counting in social sustainability that we contend that AOS can best
continue nurturing the development of research projects in this
area of policy and practice. This effective use of nuanced theory to
help capture and analyse a range of evidence on accounting for
social sustainability can help to provide further rigorous answers to
rigorous, well-justi?ed, research questions in this area.
Acknowledgements
We are very grateful to Jan Bebbington, Christopher Chapman,
David Cooper, Kari Lukka, and to participants at the Accounting,
Organizations and Society 40th Anniversary Workshop hosted by
the London School of Economics and Political Science in May 2015
and at the CSEAR France conference at ESSEC Business School in
June 2015 for their invaluable comments on earlier drafts of this
paper.
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