Chapter 1 Accounting, Sustainability and Equity

Abstract

The social responsibility of organisations – commonly known as corporate social responsibility (CSR) or corporate responsibility – has become an important issue in contemporary international debates (see Aras & Crowther, 2007a). More recently, however, the discourse has changed to that of sustainability, and many corporate reports which used to be designated as environmental reports and subsequently as CSR reports have now been repackaged as sustainability reports. CSR, however, is more problematic as it is often perceived that there is a dichotomy between CSR activity and financial performance with one being deleterious to the other and corporations having an imperative to pursue shareholder value. Moreover, there is no agreed upon definition of exactly what constitutes CSR (Ortiz Martinez & Crowther, 2005) and therefore no agreed upon basis for measuring that activity and relating it to the various dimensions of corporate performance. Consequently, much of the previous research regarding CSR deals with this issue and the problems in development of standards for definition and reporting for such indeterminate activity (see Crowther, 2006).

Citation

Aras, G. and Crowther, D. (2012), "Chapter 1 Accounting, Sustainability and Equity", Aras, G. and Crowther, D. (Ed.) Business Strategy and Sustainability (Developments in Corporate Governance and Responsibility, Vol. 3), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 1-21. https://doi.org/10.1108/S2043-0523(2012)0000003005