Future Earth: possibilities for SEA

On a sticky summer’s day, 200 or so individuals came together in the hallowed halls of the Royal Society to hear about Future Earth and to discuss challenges and opportunities for UK research and stakeholder communities. Jan Bebbington and I joined the meeting with a view to understanding the programme and considering how social science, and in particular the CSEAR communities may engage with Future Earth.

Future Earth is a new 10-year research programme on global sustainability launched in June 2012 at Rio +20.  The programme is organised around three research themes (i) dynamic planet; (ii) global development; and (iii) transformations towards sustainability and seeks to answer questions such as

• ·       How can governance be adapted to promote global sustainability?
• ·       How can societies adapt to the social and ecological consequences of a warming world, and what are the barriers, limits and opportunities to adaptation?
• ·       What lifestyles, ethics and values are conducive to environmental stewardship and human welfare and how might these contribute to support a positive transition to global sustainability?

Informed by an idea of co-design and co-production of knowledge, the initiative seeks to integrate natural science, social science, engineering and the humanities research and to engage with various stakeholder communities including policy-makers and the business community. The global nature of the programme will lead to the development of a distributed knowledge network with regional centres. Research nodes aim to ‘be responsive to needs and priorities of decision-makers at regional and national level, encourage broader participation of users in the research, coordinate global environmental change research agendas and activities, and disseminate knowledge and capacity on science for sustainability across the globe’.

Despite the call for social science research, we noted the apparent absence of management and business researchers as well as limited presence of civil society NGOs. Members of the CSEAR network have a long tradition of engaging with various communities, including those within the public and private sector in relation to sustainability challenges. Recent work concerning accounting for climate, biodiversity and water evidences both theoretical and practical contributions to sustainability. CSEAR is an international network with activities underway around the globe. This creates a rich opportunity to perhaps engage with Future Earth activities.

As the initiative develops, how might social and environmental accounting research contribute or engage with these initiatives? More generally, what lessons have been learnt or gleaned from within the CSEAR community about interdisciplinary projects that seek to address sustainability challenges? How might we build further capacity and capabilities across the community to engage through praxis, as individuals and collectively, for transitions to sustainability?

If you are interested in finding out more about the programme, the Initial Design Report of Future Earth via the Future Earth webpages on the ICSU website.

For another view on the Future Earth meeting, check out Victor Anderson's post 'Does Future Earth get the big picture?' at the Green Economy Coalition. 

Jan Bebbington & Shona Russell (June 2013)

Reflections on the 2013 Global Reporting Inititative Conference, Amsterdam

By Professor Carlos Larrinaga, Universidad de Burgos

Following an exchange of opinions on the CSEAR Facebook page between myself and some colleagues, Colin Dey asked me to write a short piece with my reflections about the GRI conference recently held in May in Amsterdam.

This was my fourth GRI event. The first time was in 2001 in London, and I was a member of a working group on integrated indicators. It was very exciting to see a good combination of auditors, consultants, NGOs, union representatives and some academics. At that time I wrote an article in SEAJ on this issue with some of my reflections. To give an idea of the people involved in that moment, Mathis Wackernagel (a leading ‘footprint analysis’ researcher) was the chair of my working group. Resulting from this work was the 2002 GRI reporting guidelines, in which not all the discussion of the working group were included.

I also volunteered in 2004 for a regional meeting in Geneva, in which the third generation G3 guidelines were already under preparation. It was at this point I perceived a change: fewer stakeholders were present, and instead, consultants were the largest number of attendants. This shift has intensified further in the conferences I attended in 2008 and in 2013.

In the area of social and environmental accounting, there is ample evidence of the loose relationship between corporate sustainability reports and sustainable development. And two observations suggest to me that the GRI conference is just reflecting this.

First, something that is quite strange from an academic perspective, is the design of the conference: it was about the “disclosure” of the new guidelines, in one direction: from the designers to the public. I was part of the public. And I had the feeling that they were trying to sell me this product, in a commercial way.

Second, and related to the first point, was the lack of dialogue between different groups. I only could hear the heterodox voice of Sharan Burrow, from the ITUC. Other speakers were interested in the growth of corporate reporting, but very little was said about sustainability. Academics were confined to a separate parallel session. And while we were discussing the public policy context of sustainability reporting, the other parallel session, about financial markets, was crowded. A clue perhaps?

The academic critique of integrated reporting developments did not affect the ‘official’ conclusion that integrated reporting is part of the future of corporate reporting. And when Charles Cho (also present at the academic session) mentioned those critiques, an IIRC representative just sidestepped the discussion.

In conclusion, the GRI conference exemplifies the basic paradox of social and environmental accounting. Sustainability reporting practice is increasing, but only as far as it is just loosely coupled with sustainable development. The question then is raised: ‘should we engage with processes such as the GRI?’ And I think that the answer is ‘yes’. Our first endeavour is to understand, and to do so, we need to participate, to listen, to speak and to understand other languages. I do not think that truth is unique and fixed, but multifaceted and flux. In short, I think we need to speak with the devil, no matter how difficult it is.

External Accounting & Activism: Thoughts from a workshop

In a cavernous room in the University of Strathclyde, accounting academics gathered on earlier this week to discuss our conceptions, experiences and understandings of external accounting and activism. The international group came together to discuss responses to such questions: What did we mean by activism? What is accounting, for that matter? What problems or issues did our research, our engagement focus upon? What are the limits, possibilities and practicalities of doing this engagement? After lunch, we returned to watch and listen to four presentations from around the globe. From valleys and coasts of Aotearoa New Zealand, to the oil fields of Nigeria via the mountains of Peru, we heard about alterative accounts and multiple actors assembled around and responding to problems of climate change, biodiversity and corporate misconduct.

Over the course of the day, we identified some key themes and elements that could be considered around this area of external accounting and activism.

• Problem orientated research permeated our interests. From the prevention of coal mine operations to the recognition of impacts of student loans, our research projects often sought to document, examine, sometimes critique and other times participate in interventions to seek some form of change.
• It is important to appreciate and explore understandings of terminology and give time to discuss alternative perspectives.
• Appreciation of the multiple spaces in which activism might occur. While we might commonly think of activism protests on streets, we observed that activism occurs in parliamentary committee rooms, lecture halls and even Facebook pages.
• We identified a variety of activism practices including holding banners, compiling shadow accounts, writing research reports, lobbying politicians, creating sculptures, and documenting climate change in the local environment. The professionalization and the sophistication of practices prompted us to wonder, are PR companies and NGOs incorporating the same practices but for very different ends?
• The role(s) and identities of accounting academics. We wondered did authority come with the identity? When might it be an (in)appropriate time to declare such identities? Rather than declare a determination to all be public intellectuals, we recognised that individuals each have skills and capacities to engage in various ways. By sharing research experiences, we began to appreciate the diverse practices and possibilities of engaged scholarship in this area but with a broader appreciation of the institutional opportunities, pressures and responsibilities that come from our position.

So what next? For some of us, it’s about writing up individual projects and a collective piece reflecting and imagining possibilities for accounting research and activism to contribute to add … Watch this space!!

If you have any thoughts or comments relating to this topic, please comment below, email Shona Russell (sr65@st-andrews.ac.uk) or join us for a chat at CSEAR 2013.

Thanks to everyone for an interesting and stimulating day. I’m really looking forward to continuing the conversation in person, over email and in articles.

Shona Russell (May 2013)

Election of CSEAR Executive Council and Directorship of CSEAR

The worldwide CSEAR community has been working to establish a simple and effective governance structure to support it into the future. This comprises: The CSEAR Council, The Committee of International Associates and the Directorship of CSEAR. (In addition there is the SEAJ Editorial Board which is a sub-committee of the Council).

CSEAR Council:

In the recent election we received 15 nominations for the 10 positions on the CSEAR Council. The following members of CSEAR have been elected to the Council.

Nola Buhr (Canada)	Jesse Dillard (USA)
Charles Cho (France)	John Ferguson (UK)
Massimo Contrafatto (Italy)	Matias Laine (Finland)
Carmen Correa Ruiz (Spain)	Robin Roberts (USA)
Colin Dey (UK)	Ian Thomson (UK): Convenor of Council

 

The new Council voted for Ian Thomson as Convenor of the group, and he has accepted the position.

Many thanks to all CSEAR members for taking part in this election, and in particular for those members who put themselves forward for the new Council.

International Associates Committee:

The current members are:

Australia: Nick Barter and Cornelia Beck	New Zealand: Markus Milne
Austria: Christine Jasch	Portugal: Teresa Eugénio
Brazil: Aracéli Cristina de S. Ferreira	Spain: Carlos Larrinaga
Canada: Michelle Rodrigue	UK: Rob Gray
France: Charles Cho: Chair of Committee	USA: Den Patten
Italy: Ericka Costa	Zimbabwe: Rodney Ndamba

Directorship of CSEAR:

The Council has also confirmed that it has appointed Jan Bebbington and Lorna Stevenson from the University of St Andrews to act as co-Directors of CSEAR from now on.

Finally - a huge vote of thanks and appreciation to Rob Gray for his enormous contribution to the development of CSEAR over the last twenty years or so. The 2013 CSEAR UK conference in St Andrews will include a special day of events and activities aimed at recognising and celebrating Rob's remarkable achievements.

Dialogic accounting: how to get involved

Are you interested in learning more about dialogic accounting? Would you like to participate in some of the online participatory learning and action research activities linked to this project? 

Farzana, Sendirella and Nivea will be setting up an online participatory learning and action (PLA) research group later this year. They are seeking participation from a range of individuals – including SEA academics, interpretive and critical theory researchers from other disciplines, and potential beneficiaries of the research such as NGOs, activists, trade unions and other civil society participants. 

If you are interested in participating in this PLA, please contact 

• Sendirella George re social movement issues (Sendirella.George@vuw.ac.nz) 
• Farzana Tanima on dialogic accounting in developing country contexts (Farzana.Tanima@vuw.ac.nz) 
• Nivea Blackburn on informatin systems aspects of the project (Nivea.Blackburn@gmail.com)

Overall, the project’s goal is to help open accounting to critical scrutiny.  Many academics, lay communities, and policy-makers take accounting for granted.  They treat it as a “black box”, accepting without question the supposedly neutral methods by which it “accounts”.  The group hopes that its research will help to both challenge and redress these mistaken assumptions.

Dialogic Accounting: Perspectives on SEA Information Systems & Stakeholder Engagement

Our final contribution to the Dialogic Accounting series, is Nivea Blackburn's abstract  on the challenges of accounting information systems (AIS) design in increasingly pluralistic organisational and societal environments.

Designers’ Perspectives on SEA Information Systems and Stakeholder Engagement: An Interpretivist Study

                                                                                                        

This study explores the challenges of accounting information systems (AIS) design in increasingly pluralistic organisational and societal environments. Rather than a single, relatively well-defined user with one main objective, accountants are increasingly expected to address the needs of multiple users with different social, political and cultural perspectives. This is particularly the case in areas like social and environmental accounting (SEA) which attempt to grapple with relatively new ideas around sustainability reporting, ethical investment, participatory development studies, indigenous resource management, and the like. In recent years, increasing attention has been paid to the idea of “stakeholder engagement” to help ensure high quality and relevant SEA that meets the needs of a wide range of actual and/or potential users. Prior research has highlighted a theory/practice schism in this area. There is widespread agreement that stakeholder engagement in SEA is a “good thing” and the practice is promoted in academic and professional literature (e.g. by the Global Reporting Initiative). However, it has proved controversial in terms of both its conceptualisation and operationalisation. SEA researchers report that stakeholders are often not “engaged” in practice or, where they are, “stakeholders” are defined narrowly and/or their input is not taken seriously. Prior studies have considered the perspectives of managers and, to a lesser extent, stakeholders on these matters. However, very little is known about how IS designers go about designing IS systems for SEA and how (if at all) they incorporate ideas about stakeholder engagement in their practice. This study seeks to address this gap. Through a series of semi-structured interviews with IS designers and involvement in a participatory learning and action research group, it aims to contribute: (a) to a better understanding of the reported theory/practice schism; and (b) to the development of IS for SEA that better meets the needs of those working in pluralistic environments. This study is interdisciplinary in approach and a further key aim is to show how ideas from the IS literature could be used to develop SEA theory and practice, particularly in relation to the aim of designing dialogic AIS.

For further information about the study, please contact Nivea at Nivea.Blackburn@gmail.com

Dialogic Accounting: Microfinance & women's empowerment

Farzana Tanima's study explores competing economic and social logics and their implications for accounting/accountability systems through a participatory action research case study on microfinance and women’s empowerment in Bangladesh.


Here's an abstract of her research

Microfinance and Women’s Empowerment in Bangladesh: A Study of Competing Logics and Their Implications for Accounting and Accountability Systems

This study seeks to explore the issue of microfinance and women’s empowerment in Bangladesh, and its implications for accounting and accountability systems. This is a politically contentious topic.  There are debates about what exactly “women’s empowerment” means, how it fits with the other stated objectives of microfinance, how the success of microfinance should be evaluated, whether or not women are actually being empowered through microfinance initiatives, and concerns about the accountability of microfinance institutions (Kilby, 2006; Mayoux, 2002; Rahman, 1999).  My study examines these controversies drawing and building on Mayoux (1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002) and others’ work on the “competing logics” evident in microfinance theory and practice. In particular, it aims to compare and contrast “economic/commercial” and “social” logics and explore their implications for the way accounting and accountability systems are conceptualised and operationalised.  In recognition of the dominance of economic/commercial logics in traditional accounting, it also responds to calls to develop more multi-dimensional accountings and ways of operationalising proposals for more social accountability (Bebbington et al., 2007a,b; Brown, 2009; Dillard and Roslender, 2011; Dillard and Yuthas, forthcoming; Kilby, 2006, 2011; Kindon et al., 2007; Mayoux, 2002; Molisa et al., forthcoming).  Through a participatory action research case study, it focuses on the potential of dialogic accounting and accountability systems to address some of the problems and challenges identified in both the gender and development studies and accounting literatures.

If you are interested in learning more about Farzana's research, please email: Farzana.Tanima@vuw.ac.nz

Dialogic Accounting: Online social movements & Accounting practices

Sendirella George’s research focuses on exploring how dialogic accounting might both learn from and contribute to the role of social movements in civil society and their interactions with corporations, as producers of “counter-accounts”, utilising online research methods.   

Accounting for the Other by the Other: Exploring Online Social Movement Counter-Accounting Practices

This study explores social movements (SMs) and the practice of “counter-accounting”.  Normative rationales for social and environmental accounting (SEA) – based around notions of fostering more accountable, responsible and transparent organisational practices – are well-established in the accounting literature.  However, critical accounting academics argue that corporate “self-governance” of SEA practice has led to a dominant “business case” interpretation which significantly delimits what is reported.  Current voluntarist corporate social and environmental reporting (CSER) is argued to be highly selective, and largely designed to cast corporations in a favourable light rather than seriously address social and environmental performance. In the absence of reliable “official” CSER, critical SEA academics have redirected their attention towards counter-accounting(s) prepared by SMs and other civil society participants as an alternative source of accountability information. Counter-accounts have also been recognised as a way of fostering dialogic accounting practices that recognise multiple users with divergent socio-political perspectives.  While SMs are viewed in the SEA literature as important players in promoting corporate accountability and fostering organisational and social change, few studies have examined how SMs themselves understand counter-accounting practices.  This study seeks to address this gap. Through a series of semi-structured interviews with SM representatives and involvement in a participatory learning and action research group, it aims to: (a) provide knowledge of SMs’ attitudes towards different forms of SEA and the role(s) SMs see SEA playing in their interactions with corporations;  (b) investigate the extent to which SMs engage in counter-accounting practices, and for what purposes; and (c) explore how  recent advances in information and communication technologies (ICTs) have facilitated the production of counter-accounts.  This study is interdisciplinary in approach and a further key aim is to show how ideas from both the SMs and cyber-democracy literatures could be used to develop SEA theory and practice, particularly in relation to exploring the role of SMs and counter-accounting(s) in dialogic accounting.

If you're interested in learning more about Sendirella's research, please contact  Sendirella.George@vuw.ac.nz

Dialogic Accounting: Further Resources

For an elaboration of some of these ideas, see:

Brown, J. (2009). Democracy, Sustainability and Dialogic Accounting Technologies: Taking Pluralism Seriously. Critical Perspectives on Accounting, Vol. 20 No. 3, pp. 313-342.

Söderbaum, P. and Brown, J. (2010). Democratizing Economics: Pluralism as a Path Towards Sustainability. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Vol. 1185, Ecological Economics Reviews, pp.179-195.

Dillard, J. and Roslender, R. (2011). Taking Pluralism Seriously: Embedded Moralities in Management Accounting and Control Systems. Critical Perspectives on Accounting, Vol. 22 No. 2, pp. 135-147.

Söderbaum, P. and Brown, J. (2011). Pluralism and Democracy in Political Economics. International Journal of Pluralism and Economics Education, Vol. 2, No. 3, pp. 240-243

Dillard, J. and Brown, J. (2012). Agonistic Pluralism and Imagining CSEAR into the Future. Social and Environmental Accountability Journal, Vol. 32 No. 1, pp. 3-16.

Brown, J. and Dillard, J. (forthcoming). Critical Accounting and Communicative Action:  On the Limits of Consensual Deliberation, Critical Perspectives on Accounting.

Dillard, J. and Yuthas, K. (forthcoming). Critical Dialogics, Agonistic Pluralism, and Accounting Information Systems, International Journal of Accounting Information Systems.

Molisa P, Vandangombo D, and Brown J. (forthcoming). Social and Environmental Accounting in Developing Countries – Challenges, Conflicts and Contradictions.  In: Hopper T., Tsamanyi M., Uddin S., Wickramasinghe D. (eds.). Handbook of Accounting and Development, London: Edward Elgar.

Introducing...'closer look at research'

How do we find out about research projects? How do we identify and develop research ideas? How do we engage with and encourage other researchers?

So far the CSEAR blog has provided commentary on integrated reporting and shadow accounting resources, now we'd like to introduce our 'taking a closer look at research' stream. This is an opportunity to delve deeper into research projects that are in development, underway or wrapping up. Here's a space and a community with which to share your research. 

Our first series of posts are linked to Dialogic Accounting: Taking the Challenge of Pluralism Seriously, an exciting new project led by Professors Judy Brown and Jesse Dillard. Over the next couple of weeks, we'll feature further posts about this project with contributions for researchers involved. 

If you are interested in sharing your research with the CSEAR community or writing a guest blog, please contact Shona Russell (sr65@st-andrews.ac.uk). 

Closer look at research: Dialogic Accounting

For the first in our 'closer look at research' series, Professors Judy Brown and Jesse Dillard, along with advisor Professor Trevor Hopper, introduce the project Dialogic Accounting: the Challenge of Taking Pluralism Seriously that

aims to 'democratise' accounting by challenging its more traditional business focus and provide alternatives that recognise the needs of various stakeholder communities. 

Introduction

Mainstream accounting is a narrow discipline – with strong capitalist underpinnings and a focus on corporations, meeting the information needs of financial markets and maximising shareholder wealth. Since the mid-1970s, critical accountants have argued that such a limited focus is inadequate for a profession that purports to act in the “public interest”, particularly given the profound economic, social, and environmental impacts of corporate activity. They observe that even when corporations (and, indeed, public sector organisations) and accountants report on such matters, they typically do so using business frameworks and concepts.  Moreover, in keeping with positivist models of knowledge, accountants typically portray their methods as “politically neutral” further obscuring the value judgements built into their analytic methods.   The need for new approaches is increasingly evident as accounting has become implicated in politically contentious areas like sustainability, ethical investment, labour relations and participatory development.

While Social and Environmental Accounting (SEA) academics have recognised and sought to address the shortcomings of traditional accounting, initiatives have been disappointing as issues such as corporate social responsibility are still approached predominantly through a “business case” lens, focusing on “top-down” initiatives that produce “win-wins” for business and its stakeholders.  The SEA community along with other critical commentators has become increasingly aware that SEA’s aspirations for more “democratic” and “participatory” accountings have been under-theorised, and that this has significantly impeded the development of more inclusive accounting and accountability systems that can seriously engage with multiple perspectives.

In an effort to address these issues, the Marsden project argues for the value of pluralism and conflict in a healthy democracy and outlines a conceptual framework for “dialogic accounting” that takes ideological conflicts seriously.  It draws on agonistic conceptions of democracy with the aim of better understanding the perspectives of different stakeholder groups (particularly those whose viewpoints are not well-represented in traditional accounting) and enabling them to develop accountings that accord with their own philosophical and political standpoints (e.g. by articulating demands for disclosures attuned to their decision and accountability needs).  The Marsden research, accordingly, seeks to develop new theorisations of the role of accountants, stakeholder engagement, and information systems needed to help SEA academics and others challenge traditional practices and develop new dialogic forms of accounting. The aim is not to replace one dominant form of accounting with another, but rather to foster more multi-dimensional accounting and accountability systems capable of engaging a variety of perspectives and facilitating wide-ranging discussion and debate about organisational matters.

Contact details

Professor Judy Brown Judy.Brown@vuw.ac.nz

Professor Jesse Dillard: jdillard@pdx.edu

Professor Trevor Hopper: T.H.Hopper@sussex.ac.uk

Elections for CSEAR Council & International Associates

The CSEAR Council met in May to establish a straightforward governance structure for the future that is democratic and simple. It was agreed that all members/non-members of CSEAR would be contacted with information about these elections and memberships.

The major points agreed at the Council meeting were:

1. The current Director organises and oversees two elections (i) for the Council and (ii) for the Committee of International Associates. The results will be announced at the next UK CSEAR conference and communicated through the journal and newsletter.

2. The Council will normally comprise 10 members plus the current Director of CSEAR plus the current Chair of the Committee of International Associates. (Length of tenure and rotation of membership will be established by the Council)

3. The Council will be Executive and the Committee of the International Associates will act as an Upper House.

4. Council members will be elected in a full ballot of all CSEAR members on a one member three vote basis. Individuals who are members of CSEAR only will be eligible to vote. 

5. Members for election to Council may be identified by either self-nomination or by nomination by a third party (with the prior approval of the nominee). 

6. The Committee of International Associates will each be elected by a college of CSEAR members in each country (or territory) where CSEAR has individual members. Normally there will be one International Associate per country but where there are more than 50 members in a country, there will be a member for each 50 members or part thereof.

7. An International Associate for the UK will be identified as part of this process.

The first stage will be the election for CSEAR council membership. If you would like to take part please email us at csear[at]st-andrews.ac.uk with an initial statement of interest, (which may include a manifesto or details of particular interests or suggestions for the future development of CSEAR by the Council if you are elected) by 31/07/2012.

These details have beeen emailed to all CSEAR members who will be asked to select the three candidates that they wish to support. This election will be undertaken electronically. For you to take part in these elections as either a candidate or as part of the voting community you must be a member of CSEAR for 2012 by 15/07/2012. If you have any membership queries please email Lynn Christie at lc17[at]st-andrews.ac.uk

This has enormous implications for CSEAR, so please do check your membership and decide now if you want to be part of CSEAR’s future ruling Council.