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The aim of this paper is to respond to commentaries on Bebbington, Larrinaga‐Gonzales and Moneva, by Unerman and by Adams, published in Accounting Auditing & Accountability Journal, Vol. 21 No. 3.

The paper reviews and discusses the points suggested/contested by the commentary papers.

That given the current state of our understanding of corporate social responsibility reporting in stand alone (and other) formats, openness to a multitude of theoretical perspectives is appropriate. Further, that concepts of legitimacy and reputation can and should be distinguished from one another.

The authors put forward their views, beliefs and reservations.

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the significance of the link between corporate environmental and financial performance in order to show managers how an adequate management of environmental factors could contribute to the financial success of the firm.

The paper analyses the environmental and financial performance of a sample of 230 European companies. Under the stakeholder approach, the commitment to environmental performance is analysed and linked with the firms' financial improvement. The paper proposes a partial least squares model (PLS) for measuring corporate environmental and financial performance that seems to be the first time which has been applied in the field.

The results support the idea that enterprises which obtained higher rates of environmental performance show better financial performance levels in the future.

The lack of a long series of environmental performance data for organisations is an obstacle for a broader analysis. This research shows the usefulness of the multivariate modelling for analysing the environmental and financial performance of businesses.

In practice, this research may show managers the need of taking into account the environmental management factors when configuring the strategic policy of the firm and how environmental management can impact to the financial success of the firms.

The use of PLS modelling for measuring environmental and financial performance theoretical concepts and considering a sample of European companies for the empirical analysis.

The aim is to determine whether the organisations more strategically committed to their stakeholders present better social and financial performance and, based on this relationship, to determine the state of the art of the Spanish sectors' approach to sustainable development.

This paper analyses the sustainability approach of a sample of 52 Spanish listed firms. This process is based on the study of different indexes generated in order to evaluate the company's commitment through its stakeholders, the social and financial performance of these organisations, and the relationship between them. Previous results showed a positive and not significant relationship between these variables and a positive financial performance. This paper replicates a former research by introducing a fuzzy‐ logic‐based methodology in order to generate the aforementioned indexes.

The current results support the conclusions formerly obtained and simultaneously demonstrate that big Spanish companies are at an incipient stage of development of a clearly sustainability‐oriented management.

The unavailability of a long series of organisations' sustainability information is an obstacle for a broader analysis. This research could motivate the usefulness of the fuzzy logic methodology for analysing the business sustainability approach and to develop studies on the corporate social performance.

The use of fuzzy logic methodology for the generation of indexes related to the organisation's social responsibility and sustainability results.

To determine whether the strategic commitment of the company to its stakeholders is positively related to its social and financial performance.

This paper analyses the mission statements and the sustainability reports, of a sample of 52 Spanish listed firms (70 per cent Madrid stock index capitalization). The vision, mission and values of the company will define its strategic stakeholder or shareholder orientation. In the process of evaluation of the social performance of the firm it is built a scale (strategic consistency index (SCI)) which considers the quality of the sustainability reporting using the GRI Guidelines. Some traditional financial and economic indicators are used to analyse the company's financial performance.

Results show a not very high level of the stakeholder approach in Spanish companies, a high level of publication and quality of sustainability reports and, finally, a positive and not significant relationship between these variables and a positive financial performance.

The unavailability of a long series of sustainability reports is an obstacle for a broader analysis. This research could transmit to companies the positive relationship between social and financial performance.

The use of GRI sustainability reports as a component of a broader corporate sustainability index and the analysis of the strategic commitment to their stakeholders through the construction of a SCI and the relationship with their financial results.

This paper aims to investigate the link between a sustainable supply chain and companies’ financial performance (FP) and provide empirical evidence about the relationship between these two constructs. This link is an important, but still unclear, subject.

Multivariate measures of sustainable supply chain performance and companies’ FP are used for Granger causality tests on a large, diverse sample of 3,900 companies in a time frame of eight years (2004-2011).

Results indicate general bidirectional causality between sustainable supply chain performance and companies’ margins and revenue. However, the link between firms’ profitability and sustainable supply chain performance is unidirectional. In addition, the recent financial crisis altered this link between the studied constructs. Finally, a wide diversity in relationship patterns between sustainable supply chain performance and companies’ FP emerges when the full sample is divided into different geographical regions and economic sectors as specified by the Global Industry Classification Standard system.

This research makes recommendations for improving several processes, such as stakeholder evaluation of the sustainable supply chain performance of companies worldwide and manager testing of environmental policy outcomes.

Building on the mostly qualitative literature on sustainable supply chain performance and companies’ FP, this research provides quantitative evidence of the gaps between these constructs. This research contributes to the discussions of supply chain management, environmental practices and the drivers of companies’ environmental and financial success.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the proposition that corporate social responsibility reporting could be viewed as both an outcome of, and part of reputation risk management processes.

The paper draws heavily on management research. In addition, an image restoration framework is introduced.

The concept of reputation risk management could assist in the understanding of corporate social responsibility reporting practice.

This paper explores the link between reputation risk management and existing theorising in social accounting.

We present a critical literature review debating Brazilian research on social and environmental accounting (SEA). The aim of this study is to understand the role of politics in the construction of hegemonies in SEA research in Brazil. In particular, we examine the role of hegemony in relation to the co-option of SEA literature and sustainability in the Brazilian context by the logic of development for economic growth in emerging economies. The methodological approach adopts a post-structural perspective that reflects Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory. The study employs a hermeneutical, rhetorical approach to understand and classify 352 Brazilian research articles on SEA. We employ Brown and Fraser’s (2006) categorizations of SEA literature to help in our analysis: the business case, the stakeholder–accountability approach, and the critical case. We argue that the business case is prominent in Brazilian studies. Second-stage analysis suggests that the major themes under discussion include measurement, consulting, and descriptive approach. We argue that these themes illustrate the degree of influence of the hegemonic politics relevant to emerging economics, as these themes predominantly concern economic growth and a capitalist context. This paper discusses trends and practices in the Brazilian literature on SEA and argues that the focus means that SEA avoids critical debates of the role of capitalist logics in an emerging economy concerning sustainability. We urge the Brazilian academy to understand the implications of its reifying agenda and engage, counter-hegemonically, in a social and political agenda beyond the hegemonic support of a particular set of capitalist interests.

This paper addresses the link between earnings management (EM) and corporate social responsibility (CSR) in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

Data were collected from 317 Spanish SMEs to perform: (1) bivariate analysis between EM, CSR and some firm-factors (i.e. size, sector, sector life cycle stage, corporate age, family ownership, profitability and financial risk); and (2) multiple regression analysis for a better understanding of EM behavior and test the influence of sector life cycle stage variable.

Results emphasize the relevance of the sector life cycle stage as an explanatory factor. Firms operating in sectors that are growing or declining in terms of sales are more proactive to EM than those with consolidated sales levels. Stratified regression analysis also confirms that the stage of the industry life cycle influences the EM-CSR relationship. Only for SMEs with stable sales in maturity sectors, lower interest in EM can be significantly explained by higher CSR performance. Firms with regular sales levels show a more outstanding socially responsible commitment and are less pressured to legitimize their operational decisions and therefore show lower levels of EM involvement.

This paper makes a twofold contribution. On the one hand, it examines the relationship between EM and CSR, focusing on SMEs' context, in which EM study could be considered incipient. On the other hand, the controversial empirical evidence on the significance and sign of EM and social responsibility link could be explained by the stage of the life cycle of the sector in which each company operates.