ABSTRACT
To try and talk about “social accounting” as a singularity is probably to invite confusion. “Social accounting” embraces a diversity of practicesfrom (for example) environmental management accounting to habitat inventories; from Multinational Corporation stand-alone “sustainability” reports to dialogue-based third sector syntheses (Schaltegger and Burritt 2000; Jones 1996; Kolk 2003; Pearce 2003; Ball and Seal 2005; Marcuccio and Steccolini 2005). It is to this diverse notion of social accounting that we wish to direct our attention here. More particularly, though, we will speak about that academic community of social accounting with which we are most familiar-that community which, to a greater or lesser extent, draws its orientations, methods, and concerns from the world of accountants. In doing so, we will try to provide the beginnings of a critique of (what we see as) “our” academic community-but one especially informed by some of the experiences we observe in the public management community. (What the public management community can maybe learn from us is quite another matter.)
Social accounting in the academy, as we understand it here, tends to be concerned with issues of accountability, business and non-business organisations, institutions, society, and the state. The motivation tends to be a concern to contribute to a better life-and never forgetting that for many a better life is any life at all. But to take such a position (especially in accounting, business, and management) has been to invite resistance and repression from colleagues, politicians, and the business community. We approach this chapter in the belief that all informed conversations must be encouraged.
