6th Emerging Scholar Colloquium and the 31st International Congress on Social and Environmental Accounting Research, 2019: Insights and thoughts from an emerging scholar

By Miriam Corrado

From the 25th to 29th August, the University of St. Andrews hosted the 6th Emerging Scholar Colloquium and the 31st International Congress on Social and Environmental Accounting Research, joining together several emerging scholars, experienced researchers and professors from all around the world.

It was the first time I have participated in the Emerging Scholar Colloquium, and the desire to meet with the academics who, through their journal contributions, are at the basis of my academic training and knowledge, was very strong. Indeed, when I received the letter of acceptance for the Emerging Scholar Colloquium, I felt honoured but at the same time hesitant, to present and talk about my research in an international context such as CSEAR.

Thanks to the generous support from the sponsors (many thanks to Robin Roberts, Pegasus Professor and Al and Nancy Burnett Eminent Scholar Chair in The Kenneth G. Dixon School of Accounting at the University of Central Florida, USA, the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants and Charles Cho, Professor of Accounting and the Erivan K. Haub Chair in Business & Sustainability in the Schulich School of Business at York University, Canada), CSEAR has been able to offer bursaries to selected emerging scholars, providing us an opportunity to present our research projects to a cohort of distinguished international faculty and to be introduced into the social and environmental accounting research community.

As soon as I was welcomed at the Agnes Blackadder Hall on Sunday 25th August, I suddenly perceived the friendly and comfortable environment which the CSEAR community enjoy. That impression was confirmed the next morning when Lori Leigh Davis warmly welcomed all the emerging scholars in the Gateway Building, making us feel like we have always been part of that community. The colloquium proved to be useful and constructive, as well as the following days during the CSEAR UK Congress, especially for creating a lively and engaged forum for discussion and reflections on emerging issues in social and environmental accounting research.

I would like to thank the organising committee and the Faculty members (in particular Jesse Dillard, Ericka Costa, Matias Laine, Den Patten, Shona Russell, Ian Thomson, Giovanna Michelon and Carmen Correa) for the opportunity given to share our ideas, to learn through their constructive feedback and, in particular, to give suggestions for our academic career such as the guide for the publication process.

I would strongly recommend to all early researchers and PhD student, to catch the opportunity like the one offered by CSEAR for two main reasons: first, the comparison with other researchers and PhD students from all around the world, allow you to open up your mind, to know about different practice existing in academia and build a strong network; second, the discussion with the Faculty members allow to expand your own research insights thanks to the different backgrounds, research traditions and expertise of various theoretical and methodological approaches of each member.

Many thanks,
Miriam

5th Emerging Scholars Colloquium & 30th International Congress on Social and Environmental Accounting Research: A thank you letter from PhD students and emerging scholars

We, PhD students and emerging scholars, would like to thank the organizing committee of the 5th Emerging Scholars Colloquium and the 30th International Congress on Social and Environmental Accounting Research. It was, for all of us, our first CSEAR UK congress and we are really happy for the fruitful and amazing time spent in St. Andrews.

Our journey started on Sunday 26th August at the Agnes Blackadder Hall. We were welcomed and introduced to each other by some faculty members. We had the chance to get to know each other and talk in an informal manner with some of the faculty members. After our first dinner and the interesting talks we had, we felt more at ease and ready for our presentation at the Colloquium of Monday, 27th.

The next morning, Lori Leigh Davis warmly welcomed us in the Gateway Building providing us with all the information needed and wonderful animal pins for our name tag. The day was organized with a first plenary session and the subsequent parallel sessions of emerging scholars where we all had the honour to present our own research ideas. Afterwards we received lots of feedback in a very constructive way from both faculty members and other emerging scholars.

We would like to thank Jesse Dillard, Sheila Killian, Carlos Larrinaga, Leonardo Rinaldi, Robin Roberts and Andrea Romi for their fruitful insights. Faculty members’ feedback was very valuable for our own research. They gave us new ideas, interesting insights, relevant literature to support our study, possible contributions, etc. Thanks a lot for helping us to further develop our research skills!

The day concluded with a plenary session where faculty members talked about the social impacts of research and how step by step practice can be improved. We can conclude that it has been a challenging but very valuable research day!

A special thank you to Carmen Correa and Giovanna Michelon for the excellent organisation of this day! Thanks to them we had the opportunity to present our own research, share ideas and receive really fruitful hints. Also, a thank you to the AI and Nancy Burnett Eminent Scholar Chair in the Kennet G. Dixon School of Accounting at the University of Central Florida, USA, the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA), and the Erivan K. Haub Chair in Business and sustainability in the Schulich School of Business at York University, Canada for the support and sponsorship given. It provided us a great opportunity to participate to the conference without concern.

The overall conference gave us the chance to expand our own research insight thanks to the different theoretical backgrounds and broad range of methodological approaches we were immersed into. Moreover, also the different breaks were useful to discuss the presented research topics and to know each other better. We learned that, along with the presentation of projects, a conference is an ideal networking opportunity. All the attendants of the conference are happy to share their own research expertise with colleagues from other universities. The evening as well was a good networking opportunity with the St. Andrews central pub as “home” of our chats. We had, since our first day, the feeling that we were part of the CSEAR family! A family of inspiring people with the same final objective: bettering the world.

Thanks to the whole committee for the excellent organization of this conference! We appreciated as well a lot the coherence between theory and practice. Researches about sustainable development presented during a sustainable conference! ‘No plastic’, recycled paper, fair-trade teas and coffees and some other small details demonstrated how some important values are intrinsic and shared within this community.

Looking forward to see you next year!

Jolien Lievens, Laura Mazzola, Angelina Orlando, Wanisara Suwanmongkhon

Highlights from the 30th CSEAR International Congress & 5th Emerging Scholars Colloquium

Many thanks to all those who participated and who helped organise the recent events held at St Andrews at the end of last month. The 30th CSEAR International Congress attracted a record number of participants and both it and the preceding Emerging Scholars Colloquium were very successful and enjoyable events.

To give a flavour of what went on, one of CSEAR's own members, Mira Lieberman from the Grantham Centre for Future Sustainability at Sheffield University, blogged her own experiences from the events. These originally appeared on her own 'Sociolinguini Blog', but the links to these posts can be found below.

Many thanks Mira!



ESC - https://wp.me/p83JVx-2aS

Congress Day 1 - https://wp.me/p83JVx-2b0

Congress Day 2 - https://wp.me/p83JVx-2bX

Congress Day 3 - https://wp.me/p83JVx-2cD

A thank you letter and report from the 4th CSEAR Emerging Scholars Colloquium, August 2017

By Ph.D students and emerging scholars attending the CSEAR Emerging Scholars Colloquium, August 2017

After a great experience at the 4th Emerging Scholars Colloquium (ESC) and 29th Centre for Social and Environmental Accounting Research (CSEAR) conference, some of us Ph.D students and emerging scholars would like to thank the organisers for the great opportunity they provided us with this August in St. Andrews. With this letter, we also would like to give some advice to prospective emerging scholars, as well as general comments about CSEAR and ESC UK 2017, with the underlying hope of helping others interested in attending over the coming years.

The annual CSEAR conference and ESC at St. Andrews University, Scotland, together provide a great opportunity for young scholars to present their work at an early stage and receive feedback from within the community. This is not only due to the great location Saint Andrews offers, but also because the event provides a perfect networking opportunity to interact with the faculty members that kindly host us.

The ESC began on the 28th of August, 2017 and was followed by attendance at the main conference. Forty minutes were reserved for each emerging delegate to present her/his work and collect feedback from those more experienced in the field. During CSEAR ESC 2017, the Ph.D students and emerging scholars totalled 25 and came from all over the world. For example, universities such as Stockholm School of Economics, Bristol University, the University of Leicester, the University of Dundee, the University of Burgos, Paris Dauphine, PLS Research University, Bergamo University, the University of Central Florida and Auckland University of Technology were represented, among others.

Delegates were divided into sessions that dealt with different themes and research areas. Moreover, various theoretical backgrounds and diverse methodological approaches were presented by the emerging scholars, and thereafter discussed by faculty members with different research profiles. Professors such as Charles Cho (York University), Carmen Correa (Universidad Pablo de Olavide de Sevilla), Jesse Dillard (Portland State University), Matias Laine (University of Tampere), Giovanna Michelon (Exter University), Den Patten (Illinois State University), Michelle Rodrigue (Université Laval) and Helen Tregidga (Royal Holloway, University of London) acted as the discussants.

The evening before the ESC began, we had the possibility of meeting one another during dinner at Agnes Blackadder Hall. There, some of the faculty members welcomed us, as well as introduced us to each other, allowing us to feel more at ease. Getting to know our colleagues is key for the CSEAR community and this is achieved not only during the plenary sessions in an academic capacity, but also during the evenings’ social events at the infamous pub ‘The Central Bar’ which involved relation-building in addition to some deeper academic discussions.

In our opinion, the ESC and CSEAR were successes, and a special thanks goes to those who organised the conference, as well as the faculty members who welcomed us. Moreover, we are extremely grateful to the brilliant researchers within the community for their continued work and inspiration both more generally, but also specifically when participating in the discussions. With this letter, we want to show how fruitful this 4th ESC has been for us, and we hope to see you again next year… a little older and a little wiser, and perhaps with a little more emerging scholars attending.

Thank you for welcoming us to your community of social and environmental accountability research.

Ph.D. Students: 
Jamiu, Muhammad, Clarence, Rebecca, Iris, Emilia, Zhifeng, Joselyne, Anees, Leanne, Teng, John, Melita, Osai, Iredele, Alexandros, Nadra, Enrique, Shamrin, Juliette, Chaoyuan, Hyemi, Madlen, Di, Rijadh, Jingjing, David, Ahmad, Sisi.

Would-be Environmental Accountant meets Mother Nature in a Pub: A Dialogue

By Guest Blogger Dr Jack Christian

Life is full of coincidences.  For years, I have been aware that I operate from a different worldview or metatheory than probably most other attendees at the annual CSEAR conferences.  At last week’s conference, I began to wonder how many other people might feel the same, so I asked Colin Dey (editor of the CSEAR blog) if I could publish this dialogue via the blog.  It is actually taken straight from my PhD thesis.  It is one of the chapters in fact.  My PhD was effectively an investigation into the worldviews of people who, in some way or another, account for nature.  My aim in putting it on the blog is to show how my own worldview has been/is being constructed, and maybe get some response about why others choose to work in the SEA paradigm.

The coincidence is that in the last session of the conference, Rob Gray spoke about the various worldviews held by CSEAR attendees, and his concern that these worldviews are never made explicit.  He saw this as a problem, if we did not fully understand each other we could not work together to achieve our generally shared goals.

My hope in attaching my dialogue to the CSEAR blog is that it will encourage others to investigate and share their own worldviews and make for greater understanding among our community.

The whole dialogue is quite long (20,000 words) - however, it is made up of five Acts and so it is possible to dip into each one individually.  Each Act is shown separately on my own blog, the first of which can be found at https://jackchristian4sl.wordpress.com/2016/08/31/would-be-environmental-accountant-meets-mother-nature-in-a-pub-a-dialogue-act-one/.  I also list the writers and thinkers who helped me build my worldview in my blog.


THE CHARACTERS

Mother Nature                                                   Mr Commerce
Professor Science                                              Religious Man
Young Englishman                                             Soren Kierkegaard
Martin Heidegger                                             Unidentified Frenchman
Librarian Lady                                                  Young German
Carl Gustav Jung                                              Friederich Nietzsche
Psychologist Lady                                             Ecopsychologist
Arne Naess                                                        The Romantic
Michel Foucault                                                American Academic 1
American Academic 2                                       Geographern the CSEAR 
Sociologist                                                        Policy Maker
Angry Voice                                                       Reconciliatory Voice


Introduction

Our hero, an ex-management accountant, has recently read stories of environmental management accounting and despite many years in the field of management accounting he has never heard of, let alone witnessed, this phenomenon.  He is now on a journey to find what people mean when they refer to accounting and to the environment and, indeed, what he means.

In the course of this journey he now finds himself in a large dimly-lit hostelry which has one large reception lounge in which guests can congregate.  It is an ‘Open-Mic’ night with a ‘Nature’ theme. Would be minstrels are playing songs, reciting poetry and telling tales.  A fire burns in a hearth to the side of the bar, away from the bar and the hearth the room gets progressively darker.  In the darkness there are an indistinguishable but seemingly large number of tables, most of which are occupied.  


LIST OF ACTS

Act One - Who am I and what can I know?
Act Two - Deep ecology and belief systems
Act Three - Exploring the limitations of science
Act Four - Knocking at the foundations of capitalism
Act Five - The nature of nature

Reflection Post CSEAR 2013: A Poem By Jack Christian

Scurrying, frightened, from block to block.

Huddled tight against the fallen, ‘strange-stone’ tree

That stretches beyond understanding.

The people wait, the caribou wait,

For the end.

In tented villages in now barren lands

And on narrow ledges on high sea cliffs

Hunger rages and eyes stare skyward.

The people wait, the chicks wait,

For the end.

Greed drives control, perspective is lost,

The balance shifts and no-one seems to care.

Or is it that no-one knows

That the people wait, that the creatures wait,

For the end.

Who will tell their stories of fear and pain?

Who will bear witness to the greed driven crimes

That lead to an end so unjust and cruel?

The people wait, the creatures wait,

No, not for the end -

But for those who would speak up,

Those who would give an account on their behalf.

For in such an account there is hope.

By Jack Christian

Manchester Metropolitan University

http://www.business.mmu.ac.uk/staff/staffdetails.php?uref=373

Reflections on CSEAR 2013

Wow! What a busy few days. Only after a long weekend of reading, coffee and running have I managed to take time to reflect on last week’s CSEAR Conference in St Andrews.

The Gateway Building became the hub for around 110 people from around the world last week to discuss all manner of topics and papers linked to social and environmental accounting. John Roberts’ plenary ‘Between Corporate and Political Accountability: The case of the Australian Resource Super Tax Profits’ discussed globalisation, cosmopolitanism and asked ‘what does it mean to be a nation state?’

John’s use of adverts during his plenary was especially entertaining and fascinating. The announcement in 2010 of a 'super tax' on mining profits by the Australian government prompted an extraordinary lobbying campaign, firstly by the mining industry, and, in response, by a coalition of progressive campaigners and trade unions. The satire deployed by the latter through a number of parody adverts is especially worth a look - see below.

The plenary also prompted further consideration of what ‘accounts’ can be – a topic that continued to be discussed in relation to papers on accounting for nature (Jack Christian) and external accounting and activism (Colin Dey, Ian Thomson and myself).

In a contrast to previous years, we had a book launch and panel discussion associated with Capitalism, Corporations and the Social Contract: A Critique of Stakeholder Theory by Sam Mansell (University of St Andrews); discussants sessions where four particular papers were presented, posters and a couple of futures workshops discussing both the future of the SEA field and CSEAR future(s).

The workshops were based in part on a survey of the CSEAR community, which provided a very valuable snapshot of the views of CSEAR members. Further details of the survey will be made available soon via the CSEAR website, but in the meantime, part of the survey asked respondents what they thought CSEAR's vision, mission and values should be, and the latter is presented below as a word cloud:

The 2.5 days of the conference was followed by ‘Rob’s day’, celebrating the intellectual contribution of Professor Rob Gray to the field. The audience were treated to a host of wonderful and very funny presentations by Professors David Owen, Lee Parker, Richard Laughlin and Jane Broadbent.

The day also featured a quiz put together by Clemence Rannou, Delphine Gibassier and Alex Stanley, called 'Know Your Rob'. For those of you who missed the event - a copy of the quiz can be downloaded here. Only one person managed to get all the questions correct on the day - the highly competitive Dave Owen!

All in all, a packed four days with lots of stimulating conversation, a fair bit of banter and amazingly bathed in Scottish sunshine.

Thank you to everyone for participating and contributing ideas and thoughts via spoken word, post-it note or survey response. Each contribution informs and shapes ideas going forward concerning CSEAR(s) activities for the next year. Many volunteers have signed up to be part of organising webinars, hosting events and building networks in places around the world. This demonstrates the capabilities and generosity of the CSEAR community to continue to mobilise SEA scholarship in new and exciting directions.

This blog is available to communicate ideas, stimulate debate, disseminate research findings, or announce events. Please contact us if you’d like to contribute to the blog. We look forward to hearing from you.

Colin Dey and Shona Russell (September 2013)

Living on CSEAR island: Do we have a problem? Tell us what you think!

CSEAR will celebrate its 25th anniversary this year. The network has developed from a small number of UK-based researchers in 1991 to an international network of academics and practitioners engaging in various social and environmental accounting related activities.

At this year’s Summer School, two workshops will be held on the topics of the Future of the Field and CSEAR Future(s). Conference attendees are invited to share thoughts and ideas on these topics during the workshops and on poster boards located in the open space in the Gateway.

These are opportunities to celebrate achievements, discuss the messiness, and imagine possibilities of SEAR field and the CSEAR community in the past, now and in the future. There is no expectation for the participants to develop ‘one voice’, ‘one view’ and ‘one way forward’ for CSEAR. Rather, these activities aim to create space to discuss, connect and create possibilities for research, teaching, and engagement which may emerge.

In the first of these two important workshops, Carmen Correa, Matias Laine, Colin Dey and Ian Thomson will lead a debate that seeks to confront some of the issues - and problems - facing the CSEAR community. The starting point for the workshop is the forthcoming SEAJ article, "Struggling Against Like-Minded Conformity in Order to Enliven SEAR: A Call for Passion", written by Carmen and Matias. Their paper reflects upon the behavioural and attitudinal issues of scholars within the community of social and environmental accounting research and seeks to stimulate debate by discussing the authors' views on how the CSEAR community operates. 

Correa and Laine acknowledge that many within our community may feel happy and 'at home' within CSEAR, and that CSEAR has been of great importance in establishing social structures to foster research activity. However, they also suggest that:

"such an institutionalisation of social structures is not without problems: many basic issues come to be taken-for-granted and thus move beyond discussion (Spence, Husillos, and Correa-Ruiz 2010). We concur with Gray, Dillard, and Spence (2009, 564) that SEAR scholars need to expose our taken-for-granted assumptions more explicitly. Not only do such issues easily bring the development of this research genre to a standstill, but also they may lead to in-breeding and clubbishness (Spence, Husillos, and Correa-Ruiz 2010)."

A key concern for the authors is a lack of passion within the community, which is dominated instead by conformity:

"Many SEAR scholars tend to agree with each other, but when they do not agree, the issue is not taken up in discussion at all... There is too much of an obsession with appearance and coherence, and so frequently there is neither self-questioning nor any intention to really challenge others’ assumptions. Similar arguments can be directed towards the audience. Instead of listening, we audience members often only hear. We simply interpret the ideas of others according to our own research approach and do not acknowledge the premises and taken-for-granted assumptions behind them. Indeed, these are rarely, if ever, challenged at a conference."

To address these concerns, they argue that:

"We need to engage with others in order to learn. Spence, Husillos, and Correa-Ruiz (2010) emphasised that ‘what is needed is to show the political imagination to engage with actors other than simply other members of the SER cargo cult’. However, what we here call for is a different attitude of SEAR scholars, as individuals, irrespective of the type of forum or scientific gathering that they use to interact and dialogue about their research. Engagement takes place on the individual level – organisations, communities or strands of literature do not engage. Rather, we argue that engagement starts with the ability to listen to the other. Through listening, one comes to learn what the other has to say. Instead of simply dismissing views that are not coherent with one’s own worldview, such encounters should be seen as opportunities. Then, there is the possibility of coming to understand the other. However, such engagement may not be realised if we hold on to taboos – that is, if we are not willing to expose and get deeper into the taken-for-granted assumptions underlying each piece of research."

During next week's workshop, the intention is to explore Correa and Laine's call for deeper engagement and listening. In anticipation of this, we would welcome views and thoughts on the issues and challenges raised by this paper:

• Do you agree/disagree that there is a lack of passion, and too much conformity within the CSEAR community?
• Are these issues symptomatic of a wider structural problem within the community - as notoriously described by Spence et al (2010) as a 'cargo cult' of CSEAR 'islanders'?
• To what extent do structures such as the CSEAR conferences and SEAJ contribute to or alleviate these problems?
• Is the publication of a journal article in SEAJ and the running of workshops at CSEAR likely to resolve these problems, or are we simply talking to ourselves and repeating well-worn arguments that have been raised before?
• Rather than exhorting the CSEAR community for being passionless, should we be encouraging and helping them to be more free to pursue their passions?
• Where, if at all, are the positive examples or role models of existing CSEAR work that demonstrates what can be achieved?   

Follow the debate here, on Facebook, and on Twitter, using the hashtag #CSEAR2013.

Reflections on APIRA 2013 Kobe 2: Is Accounting Exciting?

My 'light' reading on the flight to Japan for the APIRA conference consisted of a book I'd stumbled across only recently. Manifestos for the Business School of Tomorrow is a collection of short essays about the state of business education in universities, which attracted a significant amount of interest when it was published in 2005. However, I think it's fair to say that much of this attention was extremely negative. For example, the book was described by one reviewer as "an entire book of negative rantings, interspersed with gratuitous profanity". Another wrote: "this book is dangerous and should be treated with extreme caution. The editors and authors are deranged if not certifiable".

So... not exactly a ringing endorsement then. And if you're easily offended, you have been warned. For the rest of us though, whilst it can be disturbing in places, there's plenty to enjoy, and parts of the book are extremely refreshing and amusing. My intention is to draw on the book to help illuminate my reflections on the APIRA conference. However, in doing so it seems I immediately fall into a trap set by one of the aforementioned reviewers, who predicted that:

"The obvious readership is that group of disillusioned, dispirited curmudgeons who have nothing positive to say about their students, research, administration, and publishers and who want to wallow in their misery with like-minded thinkers. Such readers will undoubtedly comb through these well-crafted essays and poems repeatedly, pulling out insightful nuggets to bolster their own tirades against the system."

That's me told already then!

Anyway - the main reason for me mentioning the book is that there happens to be a chapter devoted to conferences, written by Andre Spicer. He begins with the following assessment:

"Conferences are eagerly attended. Papers carefully prepared or cobbled together at the last minute. Thirty copies carefully run off to be binned by other conference delegates. Flights eagerly boarded. Irritating exam scripts left to languish on our desks. The dross of suburban life suspended for a few precious days. We arrive with irrational expectations. After a tangle with the local transportation system, we stagger up to the conference venue. The seasoned conference goer knows what will follow: Indifferent food. Petty controversy of the latest theory. Many glasses of the local liquor. Extra-marital affairs. Verbal violence. Arrogant grunts. Closed circles. Dashed hopes. Petty promotionalism. Scholastic policing. Grinding headaches. Boredom. Body pain. This is the reality of conferences. Every disgruntled conference goer knows how different these realities are to the promises which conferences make."

I'm sure most of us would recognise at least some of this. But what about the serious business of papers and presentations? According to Spicer, there is only more disappointment:

"When we give a paper we secretly imagine there will be rapturous applause, we will be mobbed by admirers who claim we have created an intellectual revolution, we will be approached by sexy young things gazing at us with the kind of desirous fire that played in the eyes of the young men of Athens after a session with Plato. Given these unrealistic, filthy and secret desires, it is not surprising that we are always disappointed with what we get back. Of course what we get back is a few friendly comments, perhaps a few thought-providing claims. In short, we get back something which falls far short of what we imagined. The kind of exchange which we get during a conference will always disappoint us. Our thoughts, images and fantasies will always be dashed. So, the act of conferring with others must always be tempered with a preparation for disappointment, for it always awaits you."

So, how did this year's big APIRA jamboree measure up? What's the reality of these mega conferences? Are they really worth going to, or should we prepare ourselves only for inevitable disappointment?

While I admit I did experience a few glasses of local sake, the odd grinding headache and an undeniable absence of rapture at the end of my presentation, overall I still thought the conference was well worth attending. I would certainly endorse the views expressed in Jane Broadbent's earlier guest blog on the conference. In particular, there were many excellent papers presented, accompanied by very good comments from the discussants assigned to each paper. I also had a great time in Japan and found the people extremely friendly and welcoming.

However, since Jane has already provided an excellent commentary on the many good things that came out of the conference, I hope that might give me some room to reflect on one or two other aspects.

In one of the sessions which I attended, two of the three papers consisted of disclosure studies on CSR in developing countries. One aspect of these studies that I really noticed was the way in which they generally theorised CSR from the point of view of existing disclosure studies. The question of how/why disclosure happens is these countries seemed to be understood as a 'gap' within the literature. However, in my view, this incremental/gap spotting approach is not necessarily the right approach to take, especially in countries such as China. Although underplayed in most disclosure studies, it seems to me that disclosure is heavily culturally and politically influenced. Yet serious consideration of the political nature of this form of knowledge production seems thin on the ground in these studies, which tend to ask the usual questions such as 'how much reporting/how many companies?' and 'how does disclosure quality compare to benchmarks like GRI?'

This apparent depoliticising of CSR disclosure studies in countries such as China may be related to the nature of academic knowledge production in those countries. In other words, it's not just CSR that is politically mediated, it's also academic research. It's not difficult to imagine how academic careers might be damaged by producing research which is implicitly critical of the state or its agencies.

By the time the next APIRA conference comes around in 2016, will academics in China and other developing countries (who I have the utmost respect for) feel more able to address these issues? I sincerely hope so.

On the subject of the next APIRA - this was announced with great fanfare by Garry Carnegie from RMIT in Melbourne at the closing banquet dinner. The organisers have even adopted a marketing slogan: 'Accounting is Exciting'. No really. Or, as Garry Carnegie himself put it, 'And why not?'

Why indeed? Well, it seems to underline the point made in Spicer's essay about the unrealistic promises and expectations made by conferences. Prepare to be excited? Or just that bit more disappointed?

I googled the phrase 'Accounting is Exciting' to see if anyone else had used this phrase and in what context. I then came across a set of powerpoint slides by none other than Ross Watts (he of Watts and Zimmerman positive accounting theory fame/infamy).

According to Watts, accounting is exciting "because it can be used to mislead". I don't know if that's what Garry Carnegie meant in his marketing pitch, but perhaps the slogan is a good one after all.