The challenge: Re-steering accountability concepts to incorporate biodiversity management and reporting

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to re-kindle debate about finding a conceptual and pragmatic basis for accounting and accountability researchers and to incorporate biodiversity management into the internal practices, routines and communication of organizations.

Design/methodology/approach

A qualitative interplay of theories, particularly structuration theory, applied to an interdisciplinary, communitarian and eco-centric perspective will be used to demonstrate the need for change: for researchers and practitioners to interact with other disciplines and adapt their professional, institutional and governance practices to incorporate biodiversity management and reporting within organizational structures.

Findings

Collective community action can be undertaken by aligning physical biodiversity and its setting with the interrelationship between external information structures, accountability and internal information structures, agent behaviour and the reporting of outcomes. This should assist in reducing the loss of species and richness triggered by unsound economic decision-making.

Practical implications

This is perhaps one of the few accounting studies which discuss theoretical frameworks for the integration of accounting/accountability systems and biological diversity information through a conceptual rethinking.

Social implications

This should assist in reducing the loss of species and richness triggered by unsound economic decision-making.

Originality/value

This paper re-opens the debate regarding the need for an alternative conceptual approach through which biodiversity management can be incorporated into the complexities of business interactions, and the social and natural systems, by using management accounting as a primary vehicle. This is perhaps one of the few accounting studies which discuss theoretical frameworks for the integration of accounting/accountability systems and biological diversity information through a conceptual rethinking.

Citation

Raar, J., Barut, M. and Azim, M.I. (2020), "The challenge: Re-steering accountability concepts to incorporate biodiversity management and reporting", Sustainability Accounting, Management and Policy Journal, Vol. 11 No. 1, pp. 1-30. https://doi.org/10.1108/SAMPJ-07-2018-0201