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The purpose of this paper is to present a critical review of the development and current state‐of‐the‐art of social and environmental accounting (SEA) research, with particular reference to the role and contribution of the Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, while also offering some pointers as to how the field may develop in the future.

The approach combines a literature review and critique, with particular emphasis on SEA papers published in AAAJ (1988‐2007) together with other papers published in a range of leading‐edge journals (2004‐2007).

While published SEA research covers a wide range of topics, particular emphasis has been placed on polemical debate and studies investigating the organisational determinants and managerial motivations underpinning reporting initiatives. Some evidence is produced of a rapprochement between mainstream SEA scholars and critical theorists, with the moral foundation, and interventionist stance, of the former being combined with the historically and theoretically informed perspective of the latter. Evidence is also offered of field‐based studies achieving greater prominence in the literature in recent years.

While a “broad brush” analysis of the historical development of SEA research is offered, detailed investigation is largely confined to the contribution of Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal and that of contemporary research studies.

Agreement is expressed with the conclusions emanating from previous authoritative reviews of the field concerning the need for engagement with practice on the part of researchers. However, a managerial perspective is eschewed in favour of recommending articulation of research to social movements and working directly with stakeholder groups.

The paper provides a detailed analysis of the contribution made by one particular leading edge journal, while further drawing on recently published work in a range of journals in order to develop pointers for future effective interventions by SEA researchers in matters of public policy and praxis.

This paper aims to examine the effect of ownership structure variables on social and environmental disclosure practice in Nigeria. The paper also investigates the moderating impact of intellectual capital disclosure on the relationship between ownership structure elements, social and environmental disclosure.

The paper adopted the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) disclosure framework to extract social and environmental disclosure information from corporate social and environmental reports of 80 companies listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange. The study spanned from 2012–2017. Management ownership, foreign ownership, block ownership and dispersed ownership are considered as determinants of social and environmental disclosure. A multiple regression analysis was used to test the relationships specified in the study.

The result of the descriptive analysis has shown evidence of a low-level disclosure of social and environmental information in corporate reports (annual reports and corporate social and environmental reports) of companies. From the regression analysis, block ownership, foreign ownership and dispersed ownership are found to enhance the disclosure of social and environmental information in the corporate report of companies. However, management ownership was found to be insignificantly related to social and environmental disclosure. The result also revealed that intellectual capital disclosure has a significant positive effect on the relationship between management ownership, foreign ownership and dispersed ownership, social and environmental disclosure. However, intellectual capital disclosure does not moderate the relationship between block ownership, social and environmental disclosure.

This paper is the first to empirically examine the moderating effect of intellectual capital disclosure on ownership structure variables, social and environmental disclosure. The result of the study offer researchers a better understanding of the impact of ownership structure variables on social and environmental disclosure. The findings are useful to researchers, corporate managers, policymakers and regulatory bodies.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an introduction to the existing regulations relating to the obligations of the NHS to its employees and to discuss whether the NHS is overburdened with these regulations.

Provides an overview of the current employment regulations and their impact on the NHS. The authors conducted a literature search in August 2009 on EMBASE, HMIC, MEDLINE, PsycINFO, HEALTH BUSINESS ELITE (1995‐2009) using the terms “NHS employee”, “NHS employer”, “Employment laws”. The reference sections of retrieved papers were hand‐searched for further relevant references.

The NHS seems to differ from other employers in several aspects. It has always remained high in political agenda, and has had to face high public expectations. The NHS has a huge workforce from a variety of disciplines regulated by different external agencies. There are several areas where it seems that the NHS is struggling with the obligations to its employees. The law regarding the employment contract, redundancy and termination of contract puts the NHS management, as revealed in many case laws, in several legal dilemmas. The working time directives, time off work provisions and the rapidly changing health and safety obligations do not give flexibility and thus create practical problems to the human resources department. The ever‐growing financial obligations seem to be challenging even the very existence of the NHS.

The value of this paper is in drawing attention to the fact that existing employment law is complex and consists of several complicated statutes. The NHS is also going through a period of rapid changes, in trying to set and meet stringent and unrealistic national targets and thereby putting enormous pressure on its management and workforce. The NHS is therefore struggling in several areas with the obligations to its employees.

This study aims to explore the patterns of corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices and investments across different ownership groups and relevance of CSR practices in the vision and mission (V&M) statements of firms.

The paper uses the neo-institutional theory approach, which explains similarities and differences in the CSR practices of organisations embedded within (and between) similar sectoral contexts. The study accounts the CSR activities of the top 100 companies listed on the Bombay Stock exchange (BSE) based on their ownership and checks the overlap of the CSR activities conducted by the companies with the ongoing social development schemes launched in India during the same of time. The time period between 2017 and 2020 is chosen to analyse the CSR studies. The study uses content analysis technique to derive conclusions. A textual analysis of top 100 listed firms across all ownership groups aimed at understanding patterns of CSR practices opted by the different groups and coherence of CSR patterns in the V&M statements. CSR related keywords were analysed in the V&M statements to understand what influence reporting of CSR practices in the strategic communication of firms.

Overall analysis indicated that top 100 firms prefer to invest in the areas of “Education”, “Sustainability” “Skill” where public-owned firms preferred towards “Sanitation” and “Environment/Sustainability” showing concurrence with local development goals. Private and foreign groups preferred to park their CSR funds in “Education” and “Skill” development showing coherence with the global agendas. Public-owned firms tend to report more CSR related specifically “Environment’ and “Sustainability” in the strategic documents. However, private and foreign firms do not pay any significance to CSR related keywords in their V&M statements.

Findings suggest that despite of huge CSR investments, private and foreign-owned firms lack CSR focus and communication in their V&M statements, which may create disintegration in the CSR investment and strategic alignment of near-term and future goals. The paper suggests that private and foreign firms should also communicate their CSR practices through their V&M to stakeholders so that CSR practices may not remain mere 2% mandated expenditure by the Government of India.

The study contributes in confirming the success of the CSR policy mandate in supplementing government’s social development programmes along with indications on the role of family firms in accelerating the process of community development as compared to foreign firms. The study also favours integration of CSR disclosures in the V&M statements to gain long-term benefit out of these investments.

Lately, sustainability issues are increasingly affecting all sectors, even if oil and gas industry is highly required to improve its social performance because of the societal pressure to environmental protection and social welfare. Sustainability concerns and corporate governance features and practices are more and more connected because sustainability has been perceived as a crucial topic by owners and managers. In this perspective, the empirical analysis aims to explore whether and to what extent, sustainability-oriented corporate governance model is linked with social performance.

By adopting a multi-theoretical framework that includes the legitimacy theory, the stakeholder theory and the resource-based view theory, this analysis used a sample of 42 large European-listed companies belonging to the oil and gas industry. The authors run fixed effects regression models by using a dependent variable, i.e. the social score, available in ASSET4 Thomson Reuters, and some independent variables focused on sustainable corporate governance models, stakeholder engagement, firm profitability, market value and corporate risk level.

Drawing upon the investigation of a moderating effect, findings display that stakeholder engagement is positively associated with corporate social performance and it can be considered an important internal driver able to shape a corporate culture and most likely to address corporate social responsibility issues.

This study confirms the need to develop an organizational and holistic approach to corporate governance practices by analyzing internal and external governance mechanisms. From the managerial perspective, managers should opt for a sustainable corporate governance model, as it is positively correlated with corporate social performance.

There is an urgent need to investigate sustainability issues and their potential association with firm internal mechanisms, particularly in the oil and gas industry. This paper can extend the current body of knowledge by pointing out a positive relationship between stakeholder engagement and firm social performance.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a multidimensional model for assessing the quality of corporate environmental reporting (CER) incorporating both preparer- and user-based views.

As opposed to frequently used researcher-chosen proxies, the authors used an online questionnaire asking preparers and users how they assess the quality of a company’s environmental report.

The analysis of the responses of 177 users and 86 preparers shows that quantity was not perceived as the most significant element in determining quality. Besides quantity, the respondents also perceived information types, measures used, themes disclosed, adopting reporting guidelines, inclusion of assurance statement and the use of visual tools as significant dimensions/features of reporting quality.

The online questionnaire has some limitations, especially in terms of researcher being absent to clarify meanings and, hence, possibilities that respondents may misinterpret the questionnaire elements.

Considering that robust, reliable measurement of reporting quality is difficult, preparers, standard setters and policy makers need multidimensional quality models that incorporate both users’ perceptions of quality and preparers’ pragmatic understanding of the quality delivery process. These will make the preparers informed of whether their disclosure may be falling short of users’ expectations.

Amid, increasing complexity of CER, the research contributes to the growing body of literature on assessing the quality of CER by developing a less subjective, multidimensional, preparer–user-based quality model. This innovative quality model goes beyond the traditional quality models, subjective author-based quality measures. Focussing on the three dimensions of reporting quality – content, credibility and communication – it also offers a high-level resolution of meaning of CER quality.

To examine whether there are differences with respect to internal auditors' attitude toward environmental protection, cognizance of environmental auditing and environmental knowledge.

A questionnaire survey based research method is used and a Mann‐Whitney U‐test as well as a T‐test is applied on this data.

There is no difference between internal auditors in the manufacturing industry and those in the service industry with respect to environmental awareness and cognizance of environmental auditing. Yet there is a significant difference with respect to knowledge of environmental protection.

This study is limited to that of internal auditors' perspectives.

Internal auditors are the “watch dogs” for firms to implement environmental management so that strengthening their environmental knowledge is required.

This study reveals internal auditors' perception toward environmental management in both high‐ and low‐pollution industries that go beyond green auditing issues.

Solely focusing on economic development and financial issues have led to insufficient attention to society and the environment, which has increased the injustice in this area. Accounting can aid to compensate for this harm and improve environmental issues. That is why social and environmental accounting (SEA) is rapidly growing and evolving. However, it has not been fully implemented yet. May be one cause for this issue is the lack of identifying the factors that influence SEA implementation in all dimensions. The purpose of this paper seeks to identify these factors.

Based on the existing theoretical foundations and expert opinions, the factors influencing SEA implementation were divided into seven categories, namely, accounting requirements, environmental justice, environmental responsibility, legal requirements, organizational factors, pollution control and business issues. Interpretative structural modeling and MICMAC techniques were applied to examine the relationships between these categories and model design.

The results revealed that the legal requirement dimension is one of the effective factors and which has been identified as the cause. However, the rest of the dimensions are influenced by legal requirements. As a result, as the legal requirements are considered as the foundation of establishing the model, this factor must be seriously considered for the effective implementation of the SEA.

As the environment is not a unique environment and it has given the pivotal role of the environment in the sustainable development of communities, this leads to an increased demand for improved environmental quality. As a result, public expectations of the accounting profession to increase SEA have increased. In this paper, using the opinions of 12 environmental accounting professionals, a model for Implementation of SEA was designed to avoid social and environmental costs and damages.

Considering that identified factors are of great importance in the implementation of SEA, it seems that using a comprehensive framework that includes all the factors, can have a great impact on how to improve and enhance SEA. This study is the first to provide comprehensive model for SEA implementation.

Over the past decades, a plethora of papers have been written describing organisations' reaction to pressure on them to change their practices regarding the natural environment. These papers can broadly be classified into two groups, those research papers interested in organisations' activities and strategies to deal with environmental issues, and those concerned with the external reporting or disclosure of information regarding organisations' effects on the environment. What appears to be missing in this research is very much detailed analysis of the link between these two areas. This paper aims to address this issue.

This paper, while calling for empirical work to be carried out to investigate this link further, discusses the assumptions made about this link in previous research and then theorises what our expectations for this link might look like given our current knowledge of reporting practices, and the abundance of reporting frameworks and guidelines that currently exist.

The paper augments a model developed by Gray et al. in 1995 that suggests a hierarchy of responses to environmental pressures, within the context of organisational change. The augmentation adds an accounting element to the model by considering the reporting that organizations may undertake depending on their location in the change process.

The model provides a basis for investigation of the link between organisational change as a result of environmental pressures, and reporting. The paper suggests a number of future research projects, using the model as a basis for empirical investigations.

This paper extends an existing model to produce a comprehensive framework that provides a basis for further investigation of the relationship between accounting (albeit a broad definition of accounting to include environmental reporting) and organisational change.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the viability of the ecological furniture niche markets in Greece and Cyprus. More specifically, the authors investigate the current demand on ecological furniture, business strategy and planning in introducing eco-furniture products in Greek and Cypriot market. Finally, particular emphasis lays on the analysis of the barriers regarding decision making of Greek and Cypriot enterprises in order to incorporate ecological furniture into their current activities.

Based on three distinguished hypotheses, the study seeks to draw attention to the critical factors which will impact decision making on such products development within the severe crisis. Using a prototype questionnaire, specifically structured for the aim of the research, the authors collected data from 36 Greek furniture enterprises, 25 Cypriot ones and 24 sectoral experts and relevant institutes in Greece and Cyprus. The questionnaires were selected in 2012, which were further elaborated and statistically analyzed with SPSS ver 17.0 after they were tested for their content and construct validity, managing to verify the hypotheses.

The study reveals an increasing sensitivity for environmental issues and an effort to combine it with the emergent green markets. Green strategies can lead to significant competitive advantages for Greek and Cypriot furniture firms, especially after the recovery of the long-lasting recession. Furniture manufacturers believe that environmental issues are tightly related to consumer behaviors and social image, expose a real interest for the environment and consider green strategies as a major way to differentiate. The firms of the sample focus on raw material and processes adapted to suit environmental requirements. On the other hand, these issues constitute major barriers to apply such strategies together with business risk and the lack of knowledge regarding the requirements of environmental sustainability.

The research bears certain limitations such as the sample size and the fact that results are based mainly on perceptions of entrepreneurs/managers. Thus, there are certain questions on objectivity and generalizability. Furthermore, the market aspect is examined through the lens of the entrepreneurs and experts and not the consumers themselves.

The present research explores the why and how furniture companies turn green constituting a useful basis to encourage close collaborations of companies to academia, design and research centers introducing eco-friendly practices and relevant innovations. It contributes to the field of sustainable entrepreneurship and the micro-level understanding of micro- and small companies’ reaction to this phenomenon focussing on the furniture industry. It can act as a catalyst toward the development of extensive networking among the furniture sector in both countries, which assists the diffusion of information as well as of a pertinent culture on eco-products and the development of new business models in the sector.

A major contribution is that it can constitute a useful basis for policy makers at governmental and institutional level in both Greece and Cyprus to propose solutions to critical issues such as sector survival, crisis – survival, unemployment, along with environmental care and awareness. It can further encourage close collaborations of companies to academia, design and research centers for the sustainable development of the sector through eco-friendly practices and relevant innovations.

The research is the first to question the significance of eco-conscious strategies for furniture firms at national level in Greece and Cyprus. It seems that it has indirectly contributed to eco-furniture culture development, since it has caused a fruitful brainstorming among sectoral entrepreneurs and offers solutions to the existing “cul-de-sac.”