Ethnography, ethnomethodology and anthropology studies in accounting

First paragraph: The emergence and evolution of what is widely referred to as interpretive accounting research (IAR hereafter) in the late 1970s and early 1980s located academic accounting research within a set of paradigmatic assumptions that rejected dominant notions of accounting as a neutral, technical profession. Instead IAR conceived of accounting as essentially subjective and socially-constructed. In doing so, it focused attention on the behavioural and cultural dimensions of accounting, and the local, contextual nature of accounting within organisations. It also highlighted the powerful, constitutive role of the organizational practices of accounting, which, as a manifestation of meaning, might also construct reality (Burchell et al., 1980; Hines, 1988; Chua, 1988; Llewellyn, 1993)

Developments in Social Impact Measurement in the Third Sector: Scaling Up or Dumbing Down?

This paper outlines the merits of two approaches to social impact measurement that are currently the subject of debate within the third sector: social accounting and audit (SAA) and social return on investment (SROI). Although there are significant similarities between the methods, a number of important differences remain. In particular, while SAA involves a more ‘conventional’ mix of narrative and quantitative disclosures, SROI outcomes are more explicitly quantitative and reductive. This is most evident in the production of the ‘SROI ratio’, which calculates a monetised ‘return’ on a notional £1 of investment. In the UK, with available resources becoming increasingly scarce, the third sector is facing demands for increased accountability as well as being encouraged to ‘scale up’ in preparation for assuming greater responsibility for public service delivery. In this context, it is easy to see why the simplicity and clarity of SROI is attractive to policy-makers, fundraisers and investors, who are keen to quantify and express social value creation and thus make comparative assessments of social value. However, this apparent simplicity also risks reducing the measurement of social impact to a potentially meaningless or even misleading headline figure and should therefore be treated with caution. This is especially so where exact measures are unobtainable, and approximations, or so-called ‘financial proxies’, are used. The use of such proxies is highly subjective, especially when dealing with ‘softer’ outcomes. There is nothing to prevent SROI being used within an SAA framework: indeed, a greater emphasis on quantitative data could improve many social accounts. Nevertheless, we conclude that current efforts to promote SROI adoption, to the likely detriment of SAA, may ultimately promote a one-dimensional funder- and investor-driven approach to social impact measurement in the third sector

Who Speaks for the River? Exploring Biodiversity Accounting using an Arena Approach

First paragraph: In confronting the unsustainability of human activity and attempting to define a ‘safe operating space’ for humanity, Rockstrom et al. (2009) estimate that biodiversity loss is one of nine planetary boundaries that have already been transgressed. The United Nations’ Millennium Ecosystem Assessment has extensively documented the extent to which ecosystems have been rapidly altered and global biodiversity has been subject to negative change (UNEP, 2005). Concerns over ecosystem degradation have led to the emergence of international agreements, including the Convention on Biological Diversity (1992). These agreements seek to establish policy frameworks for biodiversity and encourage recognition of ecosystem services and biodiversity within decision-making (for example TEEB, 2009). A range of ecological indicators and economic analyses are being developed as metrics to account for biodiversity and to engage with policy-makers and businesses (TEEB 2011; 2012), and forms of environmental reporting have been recognised as a potentially important means to recognise and measure the value of the natural environment (Thompson & Mackey 2010; Mackey & Galbraith 2011)

New development: Private finance over public good? Questioning the value of impact bonds

Social impact bonds (SIBs) have emerged as an alternative mechanism for financing projects with an explicit social purpose. This article contrasts the proposed benefits of SIBs with the more mixed performance of initial projects, and reviews the early literature, revealing a similar divide between initial optimism and subsequent critique. Despite this, SIBs continue to receive high-level support, whilst expanding their reach through controversial new ‘development’ and ‘environmental’ impact bonds. This situation deserves more scrutiny in the accounting literature

Integrated Reporting at a Novo Nordisk

First paragraph: Novo Nordisk is a healthcare company and world leader in diabetes care. With headquarters in Denmark, Novo Nordisk employs more than 29,000 employees in 81 countries and markets its products in 179 countries. Since becoming one of the first companies in the world to produce an environmental report in 1994, Novo Nordisk has gained a reputation as a leader in the area of sustainability reporting. It has spent the last five years developing an ‘integrated’ reporting approach that seeks to measure social, environmental and financial performance within a single comprehensive document

External Accounts

First paragraph: Rising levels of voluntary, unregulated corporate social, environmental and sustainability reporting (SER hereafter) have failed to satisfy a wide range of critics, who have argued that they exhibit a number of major shortcomings, including, inter alia: incompleteness (Belal, 2002; Adams, 2004; Bouten et al., 2011), unreliability (Swift and Dando, 2002; O’Dwyer and Owen, 2005); silencing and/or manipulation of the views of stakeholders (Owen et al., 2001; Unerman and Bennett, 2004; Archel et al., 2011); falsely legitimating businesses’ belief in the sustainability of their operations (Brown and Deegan, 1998; Campbell, 2000); promoting a ‘business as usual’ agenda (Larrinaga-Gonzalez and Bebbington, 2001); conveying weak versions of sustainable development (Bebbington and Thomson, 1996); and managerial capture of the social and environmental agenda (Owen et al., 2000; O’Dwyer, 2003; Baker, 2010)

Moving on from Scaling Up: Further Progress in Developing Social Impact Measurement in the Third Sector

In 2011, we published an article inSEAJ[Gibbon, J., and C. Dey. 2011. “Developments in Social Impact Measurement in the Third Sector: Scaling Up or Dumbing Down?”Social and Environmental Accountability Journal31 (1): 63–72] that explored various issues surrounding the measurement of social impact in Third Sector Organisations. In the little over five years since it was published, we have been surprised to discover that our article has emerged as one ofSEAJ’s most cited (and downloaded) publications. This prompted us to take a closer look at where our paper was being cited and obtain further insight as to why and how the paper has been used across a variety of fields, within both theoretical and empirical studies, by both academics and practitioners. Relevant to both researchers and practitioners, our review provides a useful snapshot that brings together a broad literature to explore how and where social impact measurement for social enterprise and values-based organisations is developing