Accounting and incentives for sustainability in higher education: an interdisciplinary analysis of a needed revolution
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this interdisciplinary paper is to explore the constraining role of accounting in the higher education pursuit of sustainability goals and to provide recommendations to transform accounting in ways that create incentives for sustainability and a dialogic reporting culture in higher education accounting.
Design/methodology/approach
Critical social theory and “strong” sustainability provide the theoretical framework for this interdisciplinary analysis. A literature review and collection of anecdotal evidence supports conceptual development of accounting technologies that provide incentives for sustainability practices in higher education.
Findings
Conventional accounting practices are founded on positivism, managerialism, and neo‐classical economics, creating a psychic prison for the accounting discipline that fails to recognize the socially constructed nature of accounting reports and their explicit valuation role. University rewards structures, reporting mechanisms, and curricular foci dictate against the transformation of accounting technologies toward sustainability. Other anecdotes illustrate how accounting processes hinder sustainability initiatives in higher education.
Research limitations/implications
The paper recommends five changes that could be made to existing accounting reports for higher education institutions. It also proposes the adoption of both narrative reporting and a dialogic model of sustainability reporting and expansive learning in higher education organizations that would provide a transitional process for change.
Originality/value
Little literature has addressed the role of accounting in sustainability practices. This paper offers a sociological analysis of the assumptions built into the accounting profession and a reconceptualization of accounting practices that could be pioneered on the campuses of higher education institutions.
Keywords
Citation
Lange, E.A. and Kerr, S.G. (2013), "Accounting and incentives for sustainability in higher education: an interdisciplinary analysis of a needed revolution", Social Responsibility Journal, Vol. 9 No. 2, pp. 210-219. https://doi.org/10.1108/SRJ-08-2011-0058
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2013, Emerald Group Publishing Limited