Search results

This paper aims to set out several of the key issues and areas of the inter‐disciplinary field of climate change research based in accounting and accountability, and to introduce the papers that compose this AAAJ special issue.

The paper provides an overview of issues in the science of climate, as well as an eclectic collection of independent and inter‐disciplinary contributions to accounting for climate change. Through additional accounting analysis, and a shadow carbon account, it also illustrates how organisations and nations account for and communicate their greenhouse gas (GHG) footprints and emissions behaviour.

The research shows that accounting for carbon and other GHG emissions is immensely challenging because of uncertainties in estimation methods. The research also shows the enormity of the challenge associated with reducing those emissions in the near future.

The paper surveys past work on a wide variety of perspectives associated with climate change science, politics and policy, as well as organisational and national emissions and accounting behaviour. It provides an overview of challenges in the area, and seeks to set an agenda for future research that remains interesting and different.

Despite speculation from legislators and practitioners, no studies have investigated the reasons for social funds’ marginal market penetration. More generally, calls for a greater understanding of investors’ motivations, needs and purchasing intentions have not been met. By identifying what attracts consumers to social mutual funds and the information-processing difficulties consumers face when considering a purchase, this paper claims to make a meaningful contribution to the literature on social investment and mutual funds. In 2004 an Internet questionnaire survey attracted 382 interested, current and former social investors from Australasia, North America and Europe. The questionnaire measured motivations to invest in social funds and attitudes towards information sources and selection criteria. A restricted data set was used to test a set of propositions relating to respondents’ investment intentions and information asymmetries. Results were largely as expected. Respondents were attracted to social funds from moral conviction and from desires to influence corporate behavior. One in two respondents had chosen not to invest on the basis of informational concerns. Unexpectedly, social investment styles, portfolio listings and perceived accuracy of information were considered more important to an investment decision than management expenses. Findings underline a need for careful product design and management.

Reflects on the process of summarising research.

A musical structure is used as a trope for the usual research cycle of distilling reams of data into a short article that is sectioned into meaningful chunks, all of which is summarised in an abstract and represented by a few keywords.

The reductive process ultimately sublates the empirical world to a series of keywords.

Provides a reflexive break to academic work.

Reflects on the experience of summarising a lengthy research project to a few keywords. Hopefully, the thing is read at the end.

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.

This paper aims to identify the significance of carbon emissions reporting for investment banking.

Functionaries at selected financial institutions in the USA, Europe and Australia are interviewed. Carbon emissions reporting methods used by companies are identified using desk research. A proposal from a non‐state actor called the Climate Disclosure Standards Board for general‐purpose carbon emissions reporting is assessed using participant observation. The data gathered are interpreted through a semiotic lens, with focus on the placement, content, and style of reporting, and combining with a functional perspective of decision‐usefulness.

Environmental investing for well‐diversified investors constitutes a discourse of the imaginary. Financialised constructs have been used to represent heavier polluters as superior “carbon performers” (the imaginary), while reported variations in industrial carbon emissions levels have been ignored in asset allocation decisions (the actual). Environmental investing is conditioned by four factors: exclusion of carbon emissions in constructions of firm value; diverse methods used by firms to calculate, measure and report carbon emissions; the appropriate venue for such reporting; and the quantum of data contained therein. Carbon emissions reports have had some use in investors' assessments of firms' corporate governance.

Risk assessment is likely to be erroneous if using measures that deflate carbon emissions by firms' revenues. This may not matter much as carbon reporting in the hands of investors appears linked to imaginary signification more so than actual portfolio decisions.

The paper contributes to work on the participation of institutional investors in environmental investing and establishes a foundation for future research in general‐purpose reporting on greenhouse gas emissions. Supplemented by desk research, the study uses interviews to provide insights into investors' motivations for environmental investing, and how they use company‐issued carbon reports.

Grahl (2006) has commented that current manifestations of institutional shareholder activism are limited by the rise of the shareholder value doctrine in EU member states and the absence of strong legal frameworks restraining corporate practice. Survey studies have pointed to a generally muted response to legislative encouragement that financial institutions engage in reformist activist practices. Several studies have attempted to measure the effect of legislation calling on financial institutions to disclose the extent of their involvement with companies in which they have invested. All such studies have concluded that strong shareholder activism policy would require adjustments to the manner of remuneration of investment managers and intermediaries. For example, a study of pension fund reporting immediately following the introduction of British legislation in 2000 found that most surveyed organisations had disclosed the use of ‘social considerations’ in investment processes (Mathieu, 2000), with little more added by way of elaboration. (The latter observation is also couched a high non-response rate (67 per cent).) More recent studies demonstrate the struggle of pension funds in this regard. Pension funds have tended to follow conservative ‘hands-off’ ownership strategies, whereas activist approaches typically require a very different ‘hands-on’ approach (Johnson & De Graaf, 2009; Eurosif, 2010).

Recently enacted Australian law governing financial services requires investment managers to report to what extent social considerations are employed in portfolio construction. Using the principal‐agent framework as an interpretive backdrop, the paper aims to analyse institutional responses to the introduction of the legislation.

The paper distinguishes formal, claimed accountabilities from practised accountabilities. It identifies practised accountabilities by examining legislative requirements, noting responses of mainstream investment banking institutions in the period of legislative development, interviewing a sample of investment managers, and examining a sample of information disclosures issued in the initial period of the legislation.

The paper finds that while appeasing investment managers and the lobby group that urged for the disclosures, the non‐prescriptive regulations promise little in terms of promoting the integrity of management practices. Initial disclosures were poor, providing little basis for comparability.

The paper provides a basis to investigate accountabilities in service‐based contractual relationships, particularly managed investments.

The paper introduces a new research field: social reporting in financial services. The period reviewed was the initial reporting period in which Australian practitioners were required to issue social reports. Counterpart European legislation has not attracted scholarly attention. A contribution is made to critical research on social investment.