Decades of research efforts to link economic and environmental performance: still data in search of a theory?

With the proliferation of social investment vehicles, stakeholders, particularly investors, are increasingly aware of the relationship between economic, social and environmental performance, and disclosure to external parties. This is particularly evident in The Securities and Exchange Commission's Environmental Disclosure Rules. The thesis of this paper is that, after three decades of academic and professional research efforts, there are still no firm proactive guidelines to firmly link the financial performance with environmental and social performance. The purpose of this paper is to revisit empirical research efforts spanning three decades in order to delineate potential links that may assist in systematic, comparable reporting

Reliability and validity of psychosocial and environmental correlates measures of physical activity and screen-based behaviors among Chinese children in Hong Kong

Background : Insufficient participation in physical activity and excessive screen time have been observed among Chinese children. The role of social and environmental factors in shaping physical activity and sedentary behaviors among Chinese children is under-investigated. The purpose of the present study was to assess the reliability and validity of a questionnaire to measure child- and parent-reported psychosocial and environmental correlates of physical activity and screen-based behaviors among Chinese children in Hong Kong.

Methods : A total of 303 schoolchildren aged 9-14 years and their parents volunteered to participate in this study and 160 of them completed the questionnaire twice within an interval of 10 days. Intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs), kappa statistics, and percent agreement were performed to evaluate test-retest reliability of the continuous and categorical variables, respectively. Exploratory factor analyses (EFAs) were conducted to assess convergent validity of the emergent scales. Cronbach's alpha and ICCs were performed to assess internal and test-retest reliability of the emergent scales. Criterion validity was assessed by correlating psychosocial and environmental measures with self-reported physical activity and screen-based behaviors, measured by a validated questionnaire.

Results : Reliability statistics for both child- and parent-reported continuous variables showed acceptable consistency for all of the ICC values greater than 0.70. Kappa statistics showed fair to perfect test-retest reliability for the categorical items. Adequate internal consistency and test-retest reliability were observed in most of the emergent scales. Criterion validity assessed by correlating psychosocial and environmental measures with child-reported physical activity found associations with physical activity in the self-efficacy scale (r = 0.25, P < 0.05), the peer support for physical activity scale (r = 0.25, P < 0.05) and home physical activity environmental (r = 0.14, P < 0.05). Children's screen-based behaviors were associated with the family support for physical activity scale (r = -0.22, P < 0.05) and parental role modeling of TV (r = 0.12, P = 0.053).

Conclusions : The findings provide psychometric support for using this questionnaire for examining psychosocial and environmental correlates of physical activity and screen-based behaviors among Chinese children in Hong Kong. Further research is needed to develop more robust measures based on the current questionnaire, especially for peer influence on physical activity and parental rules on screen-based behaviors.

Natural Conditions and Environmental Impacts in a Coastal Hydrographic Basin in the Brazilian Amazon

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Vulnerable and exploitable:the need for organisational accountability and transparency in emerging and less developed economies

The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of the papers which appear in this special issue of Accounting Forum. The paper sets out the background and rationale for this special issue, introduces the papers contained within it and discusses their contributions to the literature on social and environmental accounting and accountability in emerging and less developed economies. This discussion is informed by the notions of vulnerability and exploitability. The final section of the paper provides conclusions and directions for future research in this under-researched area. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd.

SOCIAL AND ECOLOGICAL FACTORS INFLUENCING COLLECTIVE BEHAVIOR IN GIANT DANIO

A fundamental problem in biology is understanding how and why things group together. Collective behavior is observed on all organismic levels - from cells and slime molds, to swarms of insects, flocks of birds, and schooling fish, and in mammals, including humans. The long-term goal of this research is to understand the functions and mechanisms underlying collective behavior in groups. This dissertation focuses on shoaling (aggregating) fish. Shoaling behaviors in fish confer foraging and anti-predator benefits through social cues from other individuals in the group. However, it is not fully understood what information individuals receive from one another or how this information is propagated throughout a group. It is also not fully understood how the environmental conditions and perturbations affect group behaviors. The specific research objective of this dissertation is to gain a better understanding of how certain social and environmental factors affect group behaviors in fish. I focus on two ecologically relevant decision-making behaviors: (i) rheotaxis, or orientation with respect to a flow, and (ii) startle response, a rapid response to a perceived threat. By integrating behavioral and engineering paradigms, I detail specifics of behavior in giant danio Devario aequipinnatus (McClelland 1893), and numerically analyze mathematical models that may be extended to group behavior for fish in general, and potentially other groups of animals as well. These models that predict behavior data, as well as generate additional, testable hypotheses. One of the primary goals of neuroethology is to study an organism's behavior in the context of evolution and ecology. Here, I focus on studying ecologically relevant behaviors in giant danio in order to better understand collective behavior in fish. The experiments in this dissertation provide contributions to fish ecology, collective behavior, and biologically-inspired robotics.

Managing climate change ‘by the numbers’ in a UK energy company

This paper examines how ideas and practices of accounting come together in turning the abstract concept of climate change into a new non-financial performance measure in a large energy company in the UK. It develops the notion of ‘governmental management’ to explain how the firm’s carbon dioxide emissions were transformed into a new organisational object that could be made quantifiable, measureable and ultimately manageable because of the modern power of accounting in tying disciplinary subjectivities and objectivities together whilst operating simultaneously at the level of individual and the organisation. Examining these interrelations highlights the constitutive nature of accounting in creating not just new categories for accounting’s attention, but in turn new organisational knowledge and knowledge experts in the making up accounting for climate change. Significantly, it appears these new knowledge experts are no longer accountants: which may help explain accounting’s evolution into evermore spheres of influence as we increasingly choose to manage our world ‘by the numbers’.

An examination of Fairtrade impact disclosure practices

This study extends important insights into the motivation behind the Fairtrade impact disclosures the Fairtrade licensors, Fairtrade Labelling Organization International (FLO), and some of its major licensees. Reflecting on Bourdieu's institutional sociology and using thematic analysis method, this study reveals that Fairtrade impact disclosures are used to mediate the tension, challenges, and contradictions persist in the field. The findings provide important insights about the legitimizing strategy of the dominant Fairtrade organizations. Such insights are imperative for the regulatory bodies, social activists and academics working for the development of the accountability practices within the Fairtrade field.

When bookkeepers become beekeepers: why bee accountability

Accounting for biodiversity has received increasing attention from the academic accounting community in recent years. Despite a stream of research investigating the quality and quantity of biodiversity reporting in general, no academic research has focused on reporting related to one specific species. This paper explores the quality and quantity of corporate disclosures relating to bees. Society is becoming increasingly concerned about the accelerating fall in bee populations around the world. Colony Collapse Disorder has been spreading through global bee populations since 2006, decimating commercial hives. Concerns are fuelled by fears that pollinators may become extinct which would have dire consequences for the majority of world food production, leaving human pollination, at immense cost, the only alternative. On the basis of these fears, companies as well as other organisations, have started to establish programmes aimed at rejuvenating global bee populations. In this paper we explore the bee-related disclosures provided by a large selection of UK listed companies. We assess the extent to which companies believe they have a role to play in enhancing and protecting bee populations. Further we consider whether corporate accountability in this area derives solely from a business case or whether there is a deeper societal connection with bees as a species which is encouraging companies to protect their survival. The paper investigates the historical and philosophical connection between bees and human beings, for example the ways industrial production has been likened to honey production. We draw parallels between bees and human industrial organisation as well as between the role and responsibilities of the bookkeeper and the beekeeper.

Social Accounting Research as If The World Matters: An essay in postalgia and a new absurdism

This essay is intended as a self-reflective, auto-critique of the ‘social accounting community’. The essay is directed at the academic community of accountants concerned with social accounting. This `community' is predominantly concerned with English language accounting journals and is preoccupied with the social and environmental practices of the larger private sector organisations. The essay is motivated by a concern over our responsibilities as academics in a world in crisis and a concern that social accounting is losing its energy and revolutionary zeal. This community's social accounting endeavours have taken place in almost complete ignorance of the activities and developments in non accounting communities and, in particular, developments in the public and third sectors. The essay reaches out to the public and third sector work and literature as an illustration of one of the ways in which ‘our’ social accounting can try to prevent itself from becoming moribund.

Reflecting on contemporary accounting : teaching and learning social and critical perspectives

This paper provides a case description and analysis of an effort to enact accounting education change. The study reports on an attempt to renew the social and ethical worth of accounting education and practice in the post-Enron context of increased interest in how accounting may contribute to social responsibility and sustainability. The paper considers the organisation, aims, and content of a newly-developed unit on social and critical perspectives on accounting, and key elements of the pedagogy utilised. These include team teaching, the employment of research literature rather than a prescribed textbook, an expanded conception of accounting and accounting “knowledge”, the adoption of educational goals that encompass preparing students for economic and social life and for democratic participation, and a view that sees ethics, the environment, and society as central to accounting. It is concluded that accounting educational change must encompass the content and practice of classroom activity, but it also requires change to the self-consciousness of all actors involved. Explicit inclusion of the social, critical, environmental and ethical dimensions of accounting in our teaching and learning programs provides an avenue for academics to individually and collectively make a meaningful contribution.

Mapping social enterprise in Australia : conceptual debates and their operational implications

In the last ten years, there has been growing interest in social enterprise by governments, the not for profit sector and philanthropy in Australia The drivers of this interest have been variously understood to be: increasing demands for innovative responses to social and environmental problems; pressures on non-profit organisations to diversify their income sources; and increasing emphases by government on the role of civil society actors in partnering around social policy agendas. Whatever its genesis, very little is known about the scale and scope of the emerging social enterprise sector. In order to research the scope of the sector, an important first step involves understanding just what social enterprise is, and how it may be operationalised. This paper presents the findings from the first stage of a national research project conducted by the authors in conjunction with a new social enterprise development company. The purpose of the project was to provide a comprehensive snapshot of the social enterprise sector in Australia. In this paper, we focus on the definitional debates arising from our workshop discussions, what these mean for understanding contemporary discourses of social enterprise, and their implications for research, policy and practice.

Media pressures and corporate disclosure of social responsibility performance information : a study of two global clothing and sports retail companies

This paper investigates the social and environmental disclosure practices of two large multinational companies, specifically Nike and Hennes&Mauritz. Utilising a joint consideration of legitimacy theory and media agenda setting theory, we investigate the linkage between negative media attention, and positive corporate social and environmental disclosures. Our results generally support a view that for those industry‐related social and environmental issues attracting the greatest amount of negative media attention, these corporations react by providing positive social and environmental disclosures. The results were particularly significant in relation to labour practices in developing countries – the issue attracting the greatest amount of negative media attention for the companies in question.

Constructing the shitting citizen : the promise of scatological art as environmental and social activism

Art activism uses visual and performance art to promote social and environmental agendas. In this paper, I explore attempts to raise awareness of sanitation issues at the global, local and personal level using scatological art. I focus on the successes of the open-air public art exhibition set up in the Brisbane (Queensland, Australia) central business district to celebrate World Toilet Day in 2008. The art in this exhibition featured included one hundred toilets decorated to raise awareness of global sanitation issues and the distribution of promotional materials featuring scatological images including postcards and stickers. Given the subject matter and intent, the toilet art and promotional materials presented at the One Hundred Toilet exhibition can be seen as an example of scatological art employed for the purposes of social and environmental activism. Through the One Hundred Toilet exhibition, I consider the political aims and activist potential of using scatological art to progress social and environmental agendas and consider how this kind of ‘shit on show’ approach can contribute to the construction of the shitting citizen; one who is simultaneously responsible for and responsive to managing the waste that they produce and recognising and responding to broader sanitation issues.

Creating a Sustainability Scorecard as a predictive tool for measuring the complex social, economic and environmental impacts of industries, a case study : assessing the viability and sustainability of the dairy industry

Sustainability is a key driver for decisions in the management and future development of industries. The World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED, 1987) outlined imperatives which need to be met for environmental, economic and social sustainability. Development of strategies for measuring and improving sustainability in and across these domains, however, has been hindered by intense debate between advocates for one approach fearing that efforts by those who advocate for another could have unintended adverse impacts. Studies attempting to compare the sustainability performance of countries and industries have also found ratings of performance quite variable depending on the sustainability indices used. Quantifying and comparing the sustainability of industries across the triple bottom line of economy, environment and social impact continues to be problematic. Using the Australian dairy industry as a case study, a Sustainability Scorecard, developed as a Bayesian network model, is proposed as an adaptable tool to enable informed assessment, dialogue and negotiation of strategies at a global level as well as being suitable for developing local solutions.