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Seeking transparency makes one blind: how to rethink disclosure, account for nature and make corporations sustainable

Paolo Quattrone (Alliance Manchester Business School, The University of Manchester, Manchester, UK )

Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal

ISSN: 0951-3574

Article publication date: 16 September 2021

Issue publication date: 3 February 2022

5288

Abstract

Purpose

Financial and nonfinancial disclosures are still anchored to conventional notions of transparency, whereby corporations “push” information out to various stakeholders. Such information is now “pulled” from various sources and addresses aspects of corporate behavior that go well beyond those envisioned by the disclosure framework. This shift makes notions of values, measurement and accountability more fragmented, complex and difficult. The paper aims to bring the accounting scholarly debate back to what and how transparency can be achieved especially in relation to issues of social inequality and sustainability.

Design/methodology/approach

After an analysis of the limitations of current approaches to disclosure, the paper proposes a shift toward normative policies that profit of years of critique of positivism.

Findings

Drawing on the notion of value-added, the paper ends with a new income statement design, labeled as Value-Added Statement for Nature, which recognizes Nature as a further stakeholder and forces human stakeholders to give voice, or at least acknowledge the lack of voice, for non-human actors.

Originality/value

The author proposes a shift in the perspective, practice and institutional arrangements in which disclosure occurs. Measurement and transparency need to happen in communication exercises, which do not presuppose what needs to be made transparent once and for good but define procedures on how to make fragmented, complex, multiple and volatile notions of value transparent. Income statements and accounting more in general is to be reconceived as a platform where stakeholders will have to continuously negotiate what counts as the common good in the interest of all, including Nature.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank James Guthrie and Lee Parker for their positive response to the arguments of the paper, the two anonymous reviewers for their help in developing the manuscript, Marta Santamaria at the Capitals Coalition for her support in developing the ideas, Adrian Zicari for the interesting exchanges on similar policy initiatives in Latin America and Tomo Suzuki for our conversations on how single lines make a difference. The author is also grateful to the Liu Bolin Studio for granting permission to use Liu Bolin’s works, to Carlos Larrinaga, Chris Humphrey, and colleagues at the Alliance Manchester Business School for comments on earlier drafts of the paper. The usual disclaimers apply.

Funding: Research leading to the publication of this paper has benefited from the financial support of the Capitals Coalition Foundation.

Citation

Quattrone, P. (2022), "Seeking transparency makes one blind: how to rethink disclosure, account for nature and make corporations sustainable", Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Vol. 35 No. 2, pp. 547-566. https://doi.org/10.1108/AAAJ-04-2021-5233

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2021, Emerald Publishing Limited

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