Social Environmental Accounting Research Articles

INTRODUCING INDONESIAN CRITICAL VIEWS FOR SOCIO-ENVIRONMENTAL ACCOUNTING STUDIES: INSIGHT FORM TAN MALAKA’S THOUGHT

Purpose — This research tries to introduce one of the critical thoughts typical of Indonesia, namely Tan Malaka's view, which can be used in socio-environmental accounting studies. Design/methodology/approach — This research uses a narrative literature review method, this article then compiles the Tan Malaka critical methodology pattern that focuses on the role of the government as a regulator, supervisor, and executor of socio-environmental issues to present an accountability framework for social-environmental issues to present an accountability framework for social-environmental issues. Findings — This result of this research shows that the development of paradigmatic studies in the field of accounting opens up great opportunities to complement, refine and even present concepts to new accounting models that are in line with the demands of the times, as in this article shown, which borrows Tan Malaka's thoughts. This thought has a role as a methodological basis for presenting the concept of social-environmental accountability typical of Indonesia, which is strongly influenced by the active political movements of the elements of society. Practical Implications — This research encourages the presence of socio-environmental accounting studies without forgetting the context of locality and the dynamic people's political aspirations. Originality/value — In particular, the framework of this research is composed of the aspiration of people affected by socio-environmental problems that do the political movement, together with NGOs, to protest the socio-environmental issues.

Performance assessment of Iranian petrochemical companies using sustainable excellence model

Performance assessment of Iranian petrochemical companies based on the H3SE performance excellence model is the purpose of this paper. Reaching this goal, different aspects of the sustainable excellence model and its indices have been introduced, and through Multiple Attribute Decision-Making (MADM) approaches, Iranian petrochemical companies were assessed and ranked. Since the results of MADM are not panacea for all decision making problems and the questionnaire self-assessment approach is not rigorous enough, different techniques have been involved for compensation. In the following, the convergence of MADM rankings has been compared. The findings signify that processes management, leadership, social environmental accountability and staff results are of relative importance in H3SE performance assessment. Moreover, Ethylene Gharb, Zagros, and Bandar Imam companies have the highest rankings. Finally, ranking sensitivity was analyzed. Since the data were collected through questionnaire self-assessment approach, the reliability of this assessment may be doubted.

"Social Environmental Accounting and Reporting: MNC's Governance, Absorptive Capacity and Learning"

Based on an embedded multiple case study of a UK-based MNC, FINEST, informed by 24 semi-structured interviews, this paper investigates the antecedents and outcome of subsidiaries’ absorptive capaci...

A consideration of waste treatment in metropolitan Bangkok based on long-term social environmental accounting

This research targets the waste treatment system in the metropolitan area of Bangkok, Thailand (hereafter referred to as ‘metropolitan Bangkok’) and attempts to restructure the previous environmental assessment model which anticipates future uncertainties. The research also proposes guidelines for the social environmental accounting theory. Basically, the restructured environmental assessment model should quantitatively measure the long-term waste treatment cost and the environmental cost against the two types of waste treatment systems, i.e., the waste treatment system (baseline scenario) currently being used in metropolitan Bangkok and the respective countermeasure scenarios. Further, the social environmental accounting theory being investigated in this research is not just limited to the waste treatment in metropolitan Bangkok, but can also be considered as a contribution to the various environmental problems arising in every country or city, with a significant solution and the methodology.

Recent developments in social and environmental accounting research

PurposeThe last years have witnessed a growth in interest in social and environmental questions. Many companies have developed environmental management and auditing systems and altered their social and environmental disclosure practices. These developments resulted in the growth of research focusing on the analysis of information disclosed by companies. The purpose of this study is to contribute a reflection on the papers that have been published on social and environmental accounting from 2000 to 2006.Design/methodology/approachA literature review of the papers examining social and environmental matters published in selected accounting journals allows the identification of the key content issues, methodologies and research questions which have been predominant in the social environmental accounting research (SEAR) area. It also enables one to pin‐point areas for future research.FindingsThe content was examined and classified in four groups: social and environmental accounting systems; social and environmental disclosures; regulation impact; and relations among environmental disclosure and environmental performance. For each group, the research method; data origins and type of data; industry and country were identified. Almost all the studies are based on content analysis and interviews. Data are collected not only from the financial statements but also from other types of information disclosed by companies. In many cases, industry activities are selected carefully and most of the studies used data from the UK, Australia, and the USA.Originality/valueThe paper provides a contribution to the development of the SEAR area, exploring different views. It also helps schools to identify areas for future research.

The externalities in social environmental accounting

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the externalities in social environmental accounting.Design/methodology/approachThe paper is based on the fundamental research that is related to inductive accounting theory and uses scientific methods for identification of theoretical and practical difficulties of recognizing the externalities in social environmental accounting.FindingsThe main finding of the paper is that the information portfolio for the assessment of the externalities will contribute to the accurate estimation of the accounting offer and to the objective judgment of the requested information of this kind within the global performance management. This feat will allow construction of a pertinent informational base concerning the externalities, for integration of the external social costs into the conventional accounting model with a view to smoothly substantiating the socioeconomic and environmental policies.Practical implicationsThis paper focuses on designing a social arrangement that, in the presence of externalities, can offer an optimal allocation of resources and thus a maximization of welfare for Romanian companies.Originality/valueThe paper helps put the organization in a stronger competitive position in relation to firms that apply only conventional accounting and is not extensively and creatively in using the outcomes of expanding social environmental accounting in its decision making.

Intellectual Capital Reporting; Approaches to Data Collection and Content Method

Increasingly, researchers in the field of Intellectual capital (IC) need to be able to justify the specific research methods they use in the collection of the empirical data that they examine to support opinions regarding the merit of different approaches to managing and reporting Intellectual Capital. Of the various methods available to researchers seeking to understand Intellectual Capital Reporting (ICR), content analysis has proven a popular choice.The aim of this paper is to review the use of content analysis in understanding ICR and to offer some observations on the practical utility of the method. We further examine several research method issues relating to the use of content analysis that have been discussed in the Social Environmental Accounting (SAE) literature, but not as yet in the Intellectual Capital literature, which we believe are relevant to investigations underway in the field of Intellectual Capital Reporting.This paper reports on several developmental issues that we have confronted when using content analysis to examine the voluntary disclosure of Intellectual Capital items by various organisations in their annual reports. The paper also suggests two theoretical foundations for further investigation into the voluntary disclosure of Intellectual Capital by organisations and suggests why content analysis is well matched to both theories as a tool with which to collect the data to test likely research propositions.

Using content analysis as a research method to inquire into intellectual capital reporting

Increasingly, researchers in the field of intellectual capital (IC) need to be able to justify the specific research methods they use to collect the empirical data that they examine to support and test opinions regarding the merit of different approaches to managing and reporting IC. Of the various methods available to researchers seeking to understand intellectual capital reporting (ICR), content analysis is the most popular. The aim of this paper is to review the use of content analysis as a research method in understanding ICR and to offer some observations on the practical utility of the method. Further, the paper examines several research method issues relating to the use of content analysis that have been discussed in the social environmental accounting literature, but not as yet in the IC literature, which we believe are relevant to investigations underway in the field of ICR. This paper reports on several developmental issues we have confronted when using content analysis to examine the voluntary disclosure of IC in annual reports by various organisations. The paper also suggests two theoretical foundations for further investigation into the voluntary disclosure of IC by organisations, and suggests why content analysis is well matched to both these theories as a means to collect empirical data to test research propositions.

Environmental accounting: Neo-classical framework or alternative?

Traditional environmental accounting framework is based on a neo-classical economic theory that treats environmental assets and liabilities as if their contribution to economic acitivity were similar to that of conventional, marketed assets and liabilities. The ‘environment’ is viewed as a producer of outputs consumed by other productive economic sectors. It is proposed in this article that the environment is not only a producer of outputs, but also an output itself. The environment requires not only its protection, but importantly its continual improvement. Under this framework environmental accounting as a discipline is split into two categories: corporate environmental accounting and social environmental accounting. Two information streams exist under this framework: products-oriented information and environment-oriented information.