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This chapter is a speculative examination of the way in which theory is used in the social accounting literature. It is intended as an initial guide for those approaching the area for the first time; it is intended as a map for those in the field who would like to adopt a bigger picture for their work and it is intended as a wake-up call to those of us stuck in unconscious ruts. The chapter's departure point is the recognition that social accounting requires a reasonably sophisticated awareness of theory – not least because the subject matter itself is so contentious and conditional. The chapter's ambitions are to encourage a more evaluative and policy-based approach to the subject matter of social accounting; to offer a pedagogic basis to help others make some sense of theory in social accounting and to seek to empower and liberate social accounting scholars by assisting the range of their theorising. Social accounting scholars tend to approach the area with concerns and desires for liberation and possibility. Theory can help articulate those concerns and can support and encourage that desire. Above all, the chapter is explicitly partial, speculative and tentative, and it is not a formal or informed attempt to produce a theory of theories in social accounting. To articulate a range of the possible theories, we offer a simple heuristic through which we may navigate our way through the soup of concepts and perceptions that can blend into a potential infinity of ways of looking and seeing. We hope to encourage diversity and speculation rather than narrowness and alleged certainty.

The study examined voluntary disclosure of contributions towards SDG-6 achievement by premium board companies in the Nigerian Stock Exchange. It employed a qualitative research design in which data were collected from the sustainability/annual reports of these companies and subjected to content analysis. The analysis shows overall poor quality as the disclosures are not linked to indicators that can help measure the extent of meeting the UN set target for SDG-6. Two tangible indicators disclosed are water use efficiency and construction of boreholes. However, there is no disclosure of the proportion of the population that gained access to clean water through these initiatives. Similarly, poor quality exists when compliance with GRI-303 on water information disclosure was assessed. The motivation behind the disclosures points to a continuation of their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). The objective is to gain a social licence to operate, and legitimation as opposed to signalling superior SDG-6 performance.

Companies frequently use Internet Financial Reporting (IFR) to distribute financial and nonfinancial information to stakeholders. Research suggests that companies often distribute information via the web for impression management purposes in order to diffuse potential negative reactions and/or to promote positive reactions to corporate policies and actions. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether web disclosure of environmental information and the presentation format influences the outcomes of litigation awards. Results indicate that even a partial web disclosure of pending environmental sanctions on a company’s financial statement reduces the compensatory and punitive damages that jurors award when shareholders suffer losses as a result of environmental sanctions. The results also indicate that firms using enhanced presentation formats when disclosing environmental information further reduce the amount of damages awarded against them. These results have implications for users and preparers of IFR, and for policy makers weighing mandates for disclosure of nonfinancial information in annual reports.

The purpose of this chapter is to contribute to the understanding of environmental reporting differences in the case of Romanian entities. In order to achieve this purpose, we analyze environmental reporting differences for Romanian listed companies using legitimacy theory as a theoretical background.

We conduct a quantitative research on the Romanian entities listed on the Bucharest Stock Exchange (BSE).

The quality and quantity of environmental information reported by Romanian company still suffer from irrelevancy and incompleteness. The factors explaining the variation of environmental reporting in the case of Romanian listed companies are the export sales percentage, the BSE category, and size of the company, which demonstrate that larger companies tend to disclose more environmental information to respond to the pressure and to maintain their legitimacy.

The present study uses the content analysis as a research technique of 64 annual reports of Romania listed entities on the BSE. In this regard, a limitation of the study can be the sample size that can be extended and also the content analysis that can be considered subjective.

The chapter is of interest to anyone involved in the process of environmental disclosure, either as entity or other stakeholders.

The chapter supplements previous studies regarding environmental disclosure and the theories or factors that can explain environmental reporting differences.

The purpose of this chapter is to examine the corporate water reporting of the selected South African listed food producers with regard to the activities of measuring, managing, engaging with their stakeholders, and disclosing of their water risks.

This chapter examined the sustainability and integrated reports of 14 food producer companies on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE), for the years 2013 and 2017. The company reports were examined using the Ceres Aqua Gauge™ as the framework.

The findings of this study are that there were improvements in water disclosure from 2013 to 2017. Most companies are disclosing the basic water reporting requirements. However, critical areas around stakeholder engagement and supply chain water management were found to be lacking.

This research contributes to the body of knowledge around water disclosure and increases the awareness of water scarcity and poor water quality in South Africa. Furthermore, the study highlights that the food producers could be doing a lot more with regard to water sustainability in their businesses and the country.

Drawing upon resource-based view (RBV) and attribution theoretical lenses, this chapter provides a paradigm for examining the interplay among environmental investment towards green innovation, environmental disclosure as well as firm performance using the structural equation modelling (SEM) methodology. This chapter demonstrate a growing environmental awareness among stakeholders of the relevance of environmental performance to share value. It is also suggested that the mediating power of environmental disclosure between environmental investment and firm value as well as incremental goodwill is crucial. The findings of this chapter provide critical implications for several stakeholders that if environmental performance is hypothesised to affect the firm's value, companies may take proactive measures to avert potential environmental-related violations. Besides, investors may trade based on the evidence as to how firm value and its goodwill from acquisition will be affected by news of its environmental performance.

This chapter covers the history and development of sustainability reporting. Four phases are discussed; the first phase began during the 1950s and this is associated with the development of the term corporate social responsibility (CSR). The second phase explains the development of the ‘environmental dimension’ which started in the 1980s. The third phase was in the early 1990s, and the concept of sustainability reporting covering the social, environmental and economic dimensions has been appearing. The last phase was in 2010, where the GRI announced the integrated reporting framework which brings together economic, environmental, social and governance information.

Our paper explores the evolution in the reporting of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) for 115 Canadian firms (51 cross-listed on U.S. stock exchanges) throughout the seven year period of 1999–2006, which was the period before and after SOX and Bill 198 were enacted, resulting in a period of increasing pressure for CSR and CSR disclosure (Ballou, Heitger, & Landes, 2006). We examined CSR scores for Canadian firms listed only on Canadian stock exchanges and for Canadian firms cross-listed on U.S. exchanges. During this period, our analysis shows an overall decrease in CSR scores for all Canadian firms in our sample, and for both our subsamples of firms: Canadian firms cross-listed on U.S. stock exchanges and Canadian firms listed only on Canadian exchanges. Our analysis suggests that as a result of increased scrutiny facilitated by the regulatory changes, CSR disclosures become more transparent and comprehensive: CSR Strengths and CSR Weaknesses Scores both declined after 2002 resulting in an overall decline in Total CSR scores. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

The growth in environmental accounting research and interest in the last few years has been little short of phenomenal. For those of us with a long-standing interest in such issues, it is easy to get swept along in the euphoria of seeing environmental issues brought to centre stage in business and accounting debates. Despite wishing to encourage this growth in interest, this chapter is by way of a cautionary tale that, within this burgeoning, enthusiastic and often excellent research, there is a very real danger that environmental accounting may well end up doing more harm than good. This chapter, works from the premises that: (a) accounting (and accounting research) typically adopts a set of implicit assumptions about the primacy and desirability of the conventional business agenda — and is thus ‘managerialist’ in focus; and (b) that the conventional business agenda and environmental protection — and, especially, the pursuit of sustainability — are in fundamental conflict. If this is so then accounting is contributing to environmental degradation — not environmental protection. The chapter seeks to provide a review of the current state of the art in environmental accounting research through this ‘managerialist’ lens and then goes on to illustrate the essence of the problem through the reporting of a new analysis of data from an international study of accounting, sustainability and transnational corporations. The chapter concludes with a call for more explicit examination of the implicit assumptions held in accounting research generally and environmental accounting research in particular.

This chapter identifies, defines and explores four news media roles of conduit, facilitator, mediator and political actor through which the media participate with corporate, social and political actors in agenda-building processes. The framework of the media’s four agenda-building roles sheds light on how the news media perform their various roles as well as how other actors, such as organizations and media audiences, are able to mobilize the media performing these roles. This framework helps explain how and why media roles affect the way actors are able to influence the media agenda with the intention of shaping the public agenda.