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The purpose of this paper is to reflect upon the contributions made to the social and environmental accounting literature by papers that comprised a 2002 Special Issue of Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal (AAAJ) entitled social and environmental reporting and its role in maintaining or creating organisational legitimacy. This paper will also provide insights into the origins of legitimacy theory as used in the social and environmental accounting literature as well as providing reflections about the strengths, and shortcomings, of the theory. Suggestions are made with respect to the ongoing application, and development, of legitimacy theory.

As a commentary, this paper utilises a review of the social and environmental accounting and institutional literature across a number of decades to reveal insights about the development and use of legitimacy theory as a basis to explain social and environmental reporting practices. Citation data are also used to indicate the potential impact that the papers in the 2002 Special Issue had upon subsequent research.

This commentary shows that the 2002 Special Issue is the most highly cited issue in the history of AAAJ. It also shows that individually, some of the papers in the Special Issue represent some of the most highly cited papers in the social and environmental accounting literature. The commentary provides arguments to suggest that the development of legitimacy theory is in need of further refinement, and suggests a way in which this refinement might take place.

This paper is largely based on the opinions of one researcher, and the evidence presented in the paper is selected on the basis that it is deemed sufficient to support the opinions being projected. The paper also relies on citation data as an indicator of “impact”. The implication of the research is that it identifies a “way forward” for the development of theory applicable to the understanding of organisational social and environmental reporting practices.

The study provides evidence to show that the 2002 Special Issue was significant within the context of AAAJ, and also within the context of the evolution of the social and environmental accounting literature. The description of the history of the development of legitimacy theory, and of the theory’s subsequent application, provides a solid impetus for future refinements to the theory.

The main purpose of this paper is to illustrate the role of accounting and accounting professionals in sustainability by conducting an in-depth literature review.

This is a review-based article that does not contain empirical research. A comprehensive literature research was conducted by using online databases of selected scientific publishers and using keywords such as accounting, accounting professionals, sustainability, sustainability reporting and sustainability accounting. In addition to that, web pages of the accounting regulatory bodies and four big audit companies were also investigated.

Based upon the literature survey, it can be said that there is a lack of defining the relationship between the sustainability concept and accounting and also potential solutions to overcome the problems which create challenges for accounting and accounting professionals.

The only limitation of the study can be explained as it being a literature survey.

It is expected that the results of the paper will appear in several applications among accounting professionals, the firm that they work in, the association of professional accountants, education institutions and all the stakeholders of accounting, especially in countries with the relatively early stage of sustainability practices. The paper may give insight into aforementioned stakeholders of accounting in reformation of accounting toward sustainability.

The main contribution of this paper is to fulfill the gap in the accounting and sustainability literature by suggesting “certified sustainability accountant” credential that is equipped with core knowledge of environmental engineering as a specialized profession to handle the technical accounting problems that are related to sustainability.

The aim of this study is to elicit accountants' perceptions regarding corporate social and environmental accounting and reporting practices in a developing country such as Bangladesh.

Members of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Bangladesh (ICAB) were surveyed to determine their perceptions on issues pertaining to social and environmental accounting and reporting practices in Bangladesh.

Whilst the findings show that accountants have positive attitudes toward corporate social and environmental accounting, progress is limited, with the absence of ICAB in making any noticeable effort to develop such practices.

Unlike prior studies, the implications of this study suggest that without international influence, it is less likely that institutional forces in Bangladesh (ICAB and the government) would be effective in dealing with social and environmental accounting and reporting issues.

While prior studies advocate proactive roles of the accounting profession, this study argues that proactive roles are less likely to prevail in the context of Bangladesh without direct intervention from institutional and regulatory authorities in the international arena.

This paper aims to examine how social and environmental issues were accounted for and traded off within decision-making for Australia’s largest seawater desalination plant. This is done through an investigation of disclosures contained within key publicly available documents pertaining to the project.

The study deploys content analysis to initially identify relevant disclosures. Themes and subthemes are based on definitions of social and environmental accounting adapted from prior research. Relevant information was used to develop “silent accounts” to identify and analyse accountability issues in the case.

It was found that a number of claims made throughout reporting were unsupported or insufficiently explained. At the same time, it is found that various forms of basic measurements used to describe social and environmental issues conveyed the rationale of decision makers. It is concluded that many of the claims were asserted rather than evidenced; yet, the manner and context of their presentation gave them the appearance of being incontestable truths. Further, it is argued that the portrayal of social and environmental issues through measurable means is emblematic of values associated with contemporary neoliberal and public sector reforms.

The findings and conclusions of this study are contextually bound and therefore limited to this case.

This paper illustrates problems with the reporting of non-financial information and strengthens our understanding of the use of “silent accounting”. It illustrates the value of this approach to research examining accounting and accountability issues.

The findings contribute to the literature on social and environmental accounting by providing unique empirical analysis of non-financial disclosures within publicly available reporting.

The ecological framework focuses on ecosystems, natural resources, agricultural practices, geographical locations, conservation and environmental management. Recently, ecology has provided the underlying framework for sustainability development and reporting. This paper aims to relate the ecological approach to the environmental and conservation objectives embedded in sustainability development and reporting.

The paper argues that sustainability reporting is an organizational development and management program that has to be studied within the context of ecological ethics. It examines the evolution of sustainability reporting in relation to triple bottom line (TBL) accounting systems prepared to report the economic, social and environmental objectives of organizations.

The paper shows that sustainability is a question that transcends several disciplines, including accounting and sociology. While sustainability has been within the domain of sociology (human ecology) and ecological anthropology, recently the subject has attracted researchers from other disciplines, notably from accounting and business management. This paper notes that sustainability development will continue to be of importance to financial accounting reports. TBL reporting has become a competitive advantage for many business organizations for sustained profitability and growth.

The paper examines how governmental and corporations' natural resources conservation efforts have shaped the disclosure of environmental and social information in sustainability accounting reports. It applies theories of functionalism, institutional legitimacy, adaptation, incremental and transformational growth strategies from the organizational ecology and sociology literature to study the evolution of sustainability development and reporting.

Accounting has benefited from sociological theory and methods of research. It highlights the importance of ecological issues in shaping the preparation of sustainability reporting in accounting systems, a subject of interest to practitioners and accounting researchers.

The paper is one of the few attempts to relate ecology and sustainability to accounting reports. It integrates the sociological and organizational development literature related to ecology to advance behavioral accounting research in sustainability reporting beyond current social and environmental issues.

This paper was motivated by the current debate over the voluntary approach to environmental disclosures in corporate annual reports and assesses the effectiveness of the current policy of voluntarism in the UK. A brief review of the relevant theories, which explain why managers might choose to voluntarily provide environmental responsibility information to parties outside the organisation, is presented. With this background, the paper then questions whether the UK government’s faith in voluntarism and the pursuit of best practice will be enough to generate any real change in current environmental reporting practices. We argue that voluntarism is not effective and that there is an urgent need to introduce strict governmental regulations on the information that must be disclosed and the form in which it should be presented in corporate annual reports as have been established in several other countries. In addition, further consideration is needed to achieve reforms in academic accounting education in order to improve corporate accountability and transparency in corporate annual reports. Organisations need to respond to the growing demands for corporate social and environmental responsibility and this will be possible with the support of an accounting profession that takes a more proactive approach to engaging with stakeholders. For this to happen, we need to rethink the focus of accounting and business education. We must move away from the dominant model, which treats accountancy as a set of techniques, towards a more holistic approach which recognises the social and environmental impacts of organisational activity.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the externalities in social environmental accounting.

The paper is based on the fundamental research that is related to inductive accounting theory and uses scientific methods for identification of theoretical and practical difficulties of recognizing the externalities in social environmental accounting.

The main finding of the paper is that the information portfolio for the assessment of the externalities will contribute to the accurate estimation of the accounting offer and to the objective judgment of the requested information of this kind within the global performance management. This feat will allow construction of a pertinent informational base concerning the externalities, for integration of the external social costs into the conventional accounting model with a view to smoothly substantiating the socioeconomic and environmental policies.

This paper focuses on designing a social arrangement that, in the presence of externalities, can offer an optimal allocation of resources and thus a maximization of welfare for Romanian companies.

The paper helps put the organization in a stronger competitive position in relation to firms that apply only conventional accounting and is not extensively and creatively in using the outcomes of expanding social environmental accounting in its decision making.

This study applies social identity theory (SIT) to explore the perceptual differences among various stakeholder groups regarding the relevance of social and environmental accounting (SEA), SEA education and mandatory disclosure of SEA.

The study adopts a mixed method applying a qualitative and quantitative approach. In total, 325 structured questionnaires were analyzed quantitatively, using ANOVA and group comparison methods. Responses from 18 interviews were analyzed qualitatively to provide complementary evidence for the quantitative study.

There were significant differences between various stakeholder groups regarding the relevance of SEA practice and SEA education. Regulators were mostly affected by considerations about the external perception of work quality, followed by financiers. Practitioners and shareholders were influenced by the ability of SEA in its current state to affect actual work quality. This possibly indicates that academic qualifications have marginal effects on predicting considerations about SEA compared to social identity.

This is the first application of SIT to SEA research and contributes to the effort to improve SEA within emerging economies, highlighting that a one-size-fits-all approach may be ineffective.

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.

The purpose of this paper is to critically assess integrated reporting so as to “broaden out” and “open up” dialogue and debate about how accounting and reporting standards might assist or obstruct efforts to foster sustainable business practices.

The authors link current debates about integrated reporting to prior research on the contested politics of social and environmental reporting, and critiques of the dominance of business case framings. The authors introduce research from science and technology studies that seeks to broaden out and open up appraisal methods and engagement processes in ways that highlight divergent framings and politically contentious issues, in an effort to develop empowering designs for sustainability. The authors demonstrate the strong resonance between this work and calls for the development of dialogic/polylogic accountings that take pluralism seriously by addressing constituencies and perspectives currently marginalized in mainstream accounting. The authors draw and build on both literatures to critically reflect on the International Integrated Reporting Council's (IIRC, 2011, 2012a, b, 2013a, b) advocacy of a business case approach to integrated reporting as an innovation that can contribute to sustainability transitions.

The authors argue that integrated reporting, as conceived by the IIRC, provides a very limited and one-sided approach to assessing and reporting on sustainability issues. While the business case framing on which it rests might assist in extending the range of phenomena accounted for in organizational reports, it remains an ideologically closed approach that is more likely to reinforce rather than encourage critical reflection on “business as usual” practices. Recognizing that the meaning and design of integrated reporting are still far from stabilized, the authors also illustrate more enabling possibilities aimed at identifying and engaging diverse socio-political perspectives.

Science and technology studies research on the need to broaden out and open up appraisal methods, together with proposals for dialogic/polylogic accountings, facilitates a critical, nuanced discussion of the value of integrated reporting as a change initiative that might foster transitions to more sustainable business practices.

The authors link ideas and findings from science and technology studies with literature on dialogic/polylogic accountings to engage current debates around the merits of integrated reporting as a change initiative that can contribute to sustainability. This paper advances understanding of the role of accounting in sustainability transitions in three main ways: first, it takes discussion of accounting change beyond the organizational level, where much professional and academic literature is currently focussed, and extends existing critiques of business case approaches to social and environmental reporting; second, it emphasizes the political and power-laden nature of appraisal processes, dimensions that are under-scrutinized in existing accounting literature; and third, it introduces a novel framework that enables evaluation of individual disclosure initiatives such as integrated reporting without losing sight of the big picture of sustainability challenges.