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The decision to disclose social information in annual reports is a voluntary one. A positive model of the factors that may influence firms′ decisions to disclose social information is proposed. It is hypothesised that the decision may be affected by (a) social performance, (b) political visibility, (c) financial variables, and (d) economic performance. It is found that the decision to disclose social information is well explained by the model and that the key explanatory variables are social performance and political visibility.

This investigation/report/reflection was motivated largely by the occasion of the first Centre for Social and Environmental Accounting Research (CSEAR) “Summer School” in North America.¹ But its roots reach down as well to other recent reflection/investigation pieces, in particular, Mathews (1997), Gray (2002, 2006), and Deegan and Soltys (2007). The last of these authors note (p. 82) that CSEAR Summer Schools were initiated in Australasia, at least partly as a means to spur interest and activity in social and environmental accounting (SEA) research. So, too, was the first North American CSEAR Summer School.² We believe, therefore, that it is worthwhile to attempt in some way to identify where SEA currently stands as a field of interest within the broader academic accounting domain in Canada and the United States.³ As well, however, we believe this is a meaningful time for integrating our views on the future of our chosen academic sub-discipline with those of Gray (2002), Deegan and Soltys (2007), and others. Thus, as the title suggests, we seek to identify (1) who the SEA researchers in North America are; (2) the degree to which North American–based accounting research journals publish SEA-related research; and (3) where we, the SEA sub-discipline within North America, might be headed. We begin with the who.

This chapter intends to contribute to the debate on the determinants of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and their impact on performance measurement and communication systems. It aims at analyzing the relationship between the reasons why firms adopt CSR and the importance given to voluntary CSR disclosure.

Two main categories of CSR determinants have been identified: the external ones, coming from the environment outside the firm, and the internal determinants, which are linked to some specific characteristics of the enterprise and to the objectives it pursues.

The analyzed sample consists of 120 large Italian manufacturing and nonmanufacturing enterprises. The research hypotheses concerning the relationship between external and internal determinants of CSR and CSR disclosure were verified using an independent sample t-test, evaluating the equal variances of clusters using the Levene’s test.

Main results point out that in companies giving importance to CSR disclosure, the internal drivers are more relevant than the external ones in determining the attitude toward CSR. Among the internal determinants, drivers related to company and management values and ethics are quite relevant.

This study is subject to the limitations that generally apply to cross-sectional survey-based research.

Our research findings show that legitimacy theory represents the most relevant theory in explaining CSR disclosure practices of Italian large firms, as well as the operational implementation of stakeholder theory, such as stakeholder management. On the contrary, institutional theory only partially explains CSR disclosure, with respect to the pressures coming from financial markets.

The objective of this study is to determine whether value added variables possess incremental information beyond accrual earnings in the context of explaining security return. The evidence points to the superior explanatory power of value added variables in explaining security returns of US firms that disclose data needed for the computation of net value added. A case can be made for the disclosure of value added reports in the US.

This paper seeks to address a gap in the literature in that it explores community disclosures in annual reports examining annual reports for 5 UK FTSE 100 sectors between, 1974 and 2000.

The sample was bifurcated into types – those with higher public profile and those with lower public profile based on a measure of “proximity to end user”. Two approaches were adopted in the paper: longitudinal volumetric word count mean and frequency of disclosure by company.

The two approaches demonstrated that community disclosure was positively associated with public profile. The findings are consistent with reporting behaviour found in other categories of voluntary disclosure, where disclosure has been found to be associated with the presumed information demands of specific stakeholders. Additionally the research supported a legitimacy theory‐based explanation of cross‐sectional variability in community disclosures. Illustrative disclosures from a number of companies are also presented in the paper.

Further areas of research are suggested by these findings. In addition to articulating the potential value of examining community disclosure patterns in other contexts (e.g. in other sectors and other national situations), and in other media (e.g. internet studies), the findings in this study suggest that there may be value in exploring the ways in which voluntary disclosure responds to other external structural variables.

The contribution of this paper has been to show that a hitherto less‐analysed category of voluntary social disclosure (community disclosure) is cross‐sectionally responsive to the structural vulnerability of companies to issues associated with “general” social concern.

The American Accounting Association (AAA) Committee on Accounting and Auditing Measurement (1991) had recommended that value added be considered for mandatory disclosure in the US in addition to the income and cash flow statements. This study examines empirically the relative merits of derived performance indicator numbers from value added reporting, accrual accounting and cash flow accounting. The results show that the derived performance indicator numbers based on net value added had lower variability and higher persistency than corresponding numbers based on either earnings or cash flows of 673 US firms for the 1981–1990 period. These results and other related considerations argue strongly in favor of the recommendation of the AAA Committee.

While certain contested goods do manage to make their way to market, others have moved less far in this direction and others seem permanently unable to do so. Moral contestation promotes, holds back or blocks the emergence of contested markets. This chapter examines the conditions that make the operation of these markets possible, and those that block their appearance. From a comparison between two cases (organs for transplantation and gambling), the authors focus attention on the one hand on those devices that make transactions possible, and on the other, on the “vulnerable populations” that these devices are intended to protect, either from or by the market.

This study investigates the usefulness of net value added in explaining stock returns of a sample of US firms. The results provide evidence that current and past levels of net value added or current and past levels of changes in net value added are associated with stock returns. A case may be made for the disclosure of value added information by US firms.

Takes as its departure point the criticism of Guthrie and Parker by Arnold and the Tinker et al. critique of Gray et al. Following an extensive review of the corporate social reporting literature, its major theoretical preoccupations and empirical conclusions, attempts to re‐examine the theoretical tensions that exist between “classical” political economy interpretations of social disclosure and those from more “bourgeois” perspectives. Argues that political economy, legitimacy theory and stakeholder theory need not be competitor theories but may, if analysed appropriately, be seen as alternative and mutually enriching theories from alternative levels of resolution. Offers evidence from 13 years of social disclosure by UK companies and attempts to interpret this from different levels of resolution. There is little doubt that social disclosure practice has changed dramatically in the period. The theoretical perspectives prove to offer different, but mutually enhancing, interpretations of these phenomena.

This study aims to investigate the relationship between corporate social contribution measures and investors’ reaction under the effect of corporate governance for firms listed in China, the largest emerging economy in the world. Corporate social contribution is examined from an informative perspective by using a financial indicator – social contribution value per share (SCVPS) brought up by the Shanghai Stock Exchange in 2008.

Data are obtained from two channels: financial information during 2007-2015 generated from database and social accounting information manually collected from the 2007-2015 annual reports and social reports.

It is predicted that investors’ reaction toward corporate social contribution becomes stronger for companies with higher corporate governance quality.

This paper is one of the first to use Chinese SCVPS data to indicate the informativeness of social contribution toward firm value. It can serve as a valuable reference to both investors and companies in terms of the issue of social contribution.

The study highlights the importance of social contribution on firm value by using an empirical approach in the Chinese market. The study can be used as a reference for many other developing countries in the world.

The findings of this study can provide guidance to investors on how to evaluate a firm’s social performance and encourage companies to improve the transparency of their social reporting, as well as the quality of corporate governance.