The Role of the Social and Environmental Accounting Community ‘Post’ Pandemic

ABSTRACT

Given the urgent need for change that has become even more evident during the pandemic, it seems fitting to critically reflect on our responsibilities as scholars, educators and colleagues, individually and as members of a purposeful, supportive community, in facilitating a more sustainable world. We share a roundtable discussion that was part of the 13th Spanish CSEAR conference in hopes that the conversation will continue within the community regarding some of the perceived roles, opportunities and responsibilities post-pandemic. The perspectives shared are from a group of scholars at different stages in their careers, who have different profiles, and see their responsibilities differently. These individual and collective perspectives address personal and professional aspirations, the focus and purpose of research, and the role of CSEAR as we move into the future. Hopefully by sharing perspectives from different vantage points ranging from the beginning to the end of the ‘academic life cycle’, we can stimulate and facilitate meaningful dialogue and debate within, and about the future of, our community leading to a more resilient, active, caring, supportive, inspiring, encouraging and helpful environment and more effectively further the transition to a more sustainable world.

KEYWORDS:

• CSEAR community
• academic responsibility
• teaching philosophy
• praxis
• accountability

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 See Gray, Owen, and Adams (1996) for amplification.

2 See Gray (2002, 2010a, 2010b), Owen (2008), Gray, Dillard, and Spence (2009), Correa (2011), Dillard and Brown (2012), Deegan (2017).

3 See also Correa and Laine (2013), Gray and Laughlin (2012), Spence, Husillos, and Correa-Ruiz (2010), Tregidga, Milne, and Kearins (2018).

4 See Gray (2019), Collison, Ferguson, and Stevenson (2014), Coulson and Thomson (2006).

5 See Adams and Larrinaga (2007, 2019), and Correa and Larrinaga (2015) for a discussion of engagement research and see Belal and Owen (2007), Brown and Dillard (2013), Archel, Husillos, and Spence (2011), Thomson, Dey, and Russell (2015), Denedo, Thomson, and Yonekura (2017), Laine and Vinnari (2017), Charnock and Thomson (2019) as examples of different ways of engaging.

6 This activism is not without risks. For example, a record high of more than 220 environmental activists were murdered in 2020. https://press.un.org/en/2021/sgsm21008.doc.htm

7 See Matthews (1997) and Gray et al. (2014) for a discussion and review of the early developments.

8 Gray et al (1987), Gray et al. (1996), Gray (2002), Gray and Bebbington (2001) are illustrative.

9 Gray (2010), Cho and Patten (2013), Deegan (2013), Patten (2013), Radcliffe, Spence, and Stein (2017), Heimstädt (2017), Tregidga, Milne, and Kearins (2018), Roberts (2018), Heimstädt and Dobusch (2020), Tregidga and Laine (2022).

10 https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2020/10/07/global-action-urgently-needed-to-halt-historic-threats-to-poverty-reduction

11 For summaries and commentaries on some of this research see issue of Critical Perspectives on Accounting (2017) Vol. 43 commemorating its 25th anniversary.

12 See, for example, Burchell et al. (1980), Tinker (1980, 1984), Puxty (1986), Gray, Owen, and Maunders (1988).

13 See Ledford (2019) and Martin (2019) on health and ethical implications of algorithms.

14 But note that there is a wider ongoing debate around the boundaries of free speech and the emergence of the so-called “cancel culture” (see Beauchamp 2020).

15 For an in-depth reflection on issues such as the attribution of a violent and exploitative role of science; the claim that the universality of science and the objectivity of science are illusory; the existence of forms of knowledge of the “truth” that are equal to or superior to science; or that each culture has the right to create its own science, see Sokal and Bricmont (1998), Debray and Bricmont (2003), Sokal (2008), or Pinker (2018),

16 The more traditional accounting students accused me of teaching a philosophy course instead of an accounting course. I thought that was a compliment, but I’m sure the students did not.

17 If one is not aware that there are alternatives, one is enslaved by their current circumstances.

18 A comprehensive specification of accountability criteria has been sorely lacking. Currently, business has been “told” that it is responsible for maximizing shareholder value. The political will has not been sufficient to overcome the current inertia, or the power of capital. There are many reasons for this and most have to do with politics and power. Business is managing what it is being held accountable for – economic sustainability.

19 Also see Thomson and Bebbington (2004) for a dialogic approach to teaching social and environmental accounting.

20 For example, see Brown (2009), Brown and Dillard (2013a, 2013b, 2014, 2015, 2019), Brown et al. (2015), Dillard and Brown (2015).

21 My colleague, Judy Brown, is someone who has developed pedagogy and materials that are very successful in this regard, and another colleague, Farzana Tanima, has taken the ideas of participatory action research into the field applying the critical dialogic principles (See Tanima et al., 2020; Tanima et al., 2021; Tanima, Brown, and Hopper 2022).

22 See Boomsma (2021) and Laine (2021) for a discussion of Jeffrey’s work and contributions.

23 https://www.alternativeaccounting.org/