ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the phenomenon of organisational external reporting on social media, highlighting its implications for transparency and accountability. The author argues that, increasingly, organisations are publishing both financial and nonfinancial accounting on social media for consumption by external audiences. The change from external reporting in the form of, mainly, annual or quarterly reports, to simultaneous publication on social media, is reshaping the characteristics of this reporting. Use of social media allows external reporting to shift from being periodic to being continuous and to change from being holistic to being fragmented and forward-looking rather than historical. These various shifts can result in more nuanced transparency and a less clear relationship between transparency and accountability. From a managerial perspective, a potential shift in the format of accounting raises questions about how organisations might combine different channels and how these processes might be managed.
