The Roles of Accounting in Organizations and Society

Stock market returns and the content of annual report narratives

“…Consequently, a number of scholars argue that annual reports can be viewed as marketing tools designed to build brands, as well as to promote products and services to multiple audiences (Dröge, Germain, & Halstead, 1990;Subramaninan, Insley, & Blackwell, 1993). A less common perspective is that related to political economy, which recognizes political, economic and social tensions and argues that annual reports are ideological instruments that represent specific interests (Burchell, Clubb, Hopwood, & Hughes, 1980;Cooper & Sherer, 1984;Guthrie & Parker, 1989). Companies may also try, through the use of this particular communication medium, to legitimize their existence by convincing society that their actions are in line with community objectives and values (O'Donovan, 2002;Lanis & Richardson, 2013).…”

Accounting as a Facilitator of Extreme Narcissism

“…Accounting is a remarkably amenable and malleable resource (Burchell et al, 1980). It is alleged to have facilitated the creation of economic and business structures (Hopwood, 1987), played a key role in the rise of quantitative thinking in Western Europe (Crosby, 1997), enabled the establishment of counting and writing (Mattessich, 1987), contributed to the crises of late capitalism (Mitchell and Sikka, 1993), and demonstrated many other virtues and sins.…”

Stakeholders’ Perceptions of Corporate Social Reporting in Bangladesh

“…One possible explanation for such negative attitudes could be their cosy relationship with management and their tendency to be in alignment with corporate interests in Bangladesh (Rahman, 2003). Also, due to their traditional training and focus on the narrow economic performance of the organizations it could be that they fail to see the potential of CSRep and for accounting for broader societal issues (Burchell et al, 1980). Whilst this finding is not unique, as similar results were found in earlier studies which examined accountants' attitudes towards environmental accounting and reporting (see for example, Bebbington et al, 1994;Deegan et al, 1995;Lodhia, 2003), it stands in contrast to Kuasirikun's (2005) study where she found a more positive attitude in Thai accountants regarding the future development of social and environmental accounting in their country.…”