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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 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.