Sustaining diversity in social and environmental accounting research

Abstract

Abstract During its relatively brief, 40-year life as a recognized field of inquiry ( Owen, 2008 ), research in social and environmental accounting (SEA) has witnessed its fair share of struggles within both the mainstream and critical accounting literature. Only recently, the elite mainstream academic journals in the United States have (re)discovered SEA-related work on corporate social responsibility, and in a vast majority of that work, earlier SEA studies are either not acknowledged (e.g., Elliott, Jackson, Peecher, & White, 2014 ) or are dismissed as irrelevant to the discussion at hand (e.g., Moser & Martin, 2012 ). Critical accounting research has been more welcoming generally to SEA topics, although there has been near constant tension between the reformist approach taken in many SEA studies and the more radical tenor understandably present in critical research (e.g., Spence, 2009 , Tinker et al., 1991 ). At certain points in the development of SEA research, common ground has been found ( Tinker & Gray, 2003 ). Grappling with these dilemmas seems especially acute for quantitative SEA work that follows an objectivist/positivist research tradition, often facing increasing methodological hurdles from the elite mainstream, and/or a rejection of fundamental assumptions by critical theorists. The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, we offer support for sustaining diversity in SEA research by discussing the potential for quantitative SEA research projects to substantively challenge mainstream conceptions of SEA. Second, in order to promote quantitative SEA research we present a literature review that informs current and potential quantitative SEA scholars of recent developments in this stream of research, focusing primarily on the methodological requirements present in related mainstream quantitative research. Although admittedly partial and selective in its presentation, through this commentary we aim to promote continued support of quantitative SEA research within the critical accounting community and to help enable non-mainstream quantitative SEA researchers to disarm methodological criticisms from elite mainstream sources.