Struggling Against Like-Minded Conformity in Order to Enliven SEAR: A Call for Passion

Abstract

This paper reflects upon the behavioural and attitudinal issues of scholars within the community of social and environmental accounting research (SEAR) and seeks to stimulate debate by discussing our views on how this scientific community operates. The paper calls for passion and appeals to the emotions of SEAR individuals through a discussion on how to challenge current structures. More specifically, we address like-minded conformity as a threat to the future cohesion and health of SEAR. Thus, instead of blaming solely the Blue Meanies (Gray and Laughlin [2012] use ‘Blue Meanies’ as a metaphor for those factors which invade the world of scholarship, reflection, collegiality and enquiry. These Blue Meanies, which destroy the very essence of scholarship, include numerous modern phenomena, such as performance measurement, career mindedness, journal rankings and citation indexes. [Gray, R., and R. Laughlin. 2012. “It Was 20 Years Ago Today: Sgt. Pepper, Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Green Accounting and the Blue Meanies.” Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal 25 (2): 228–255]), we call for passion and appeal to individual responsibility. Overall, we argue for greater emphasis on the human and passionate elements of research as a way to curb the effects produced by catalysts of conformity. We maintain that this will enhance not only mutual respect and good scientific conversation but also the relevance and innovativeness of SEAR.