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Social Environment Accounting

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Accounting Forum 28 (2004) 1–5 Introduction Social and environmental accounting: trends and thoughts for the future Over the years Accounting Forum has explored different possible directions for the field of social and environmental accounting. With a new publisher—Elsevier—it is our hope that we shall reach new markets and opportunities. In recent issues, these explorations have been extended to theorising the role of accounting in transnational global processes, and to the channels of global information and the interpretation of that information. In particular, contributions have attempted to explore the notion that accounting discourse is a medium through which relationships between business and society can be created, nurtured …show more content…

A cross-sectional analysis indicates that the share price response is mainly a function of the relative fine imposed on the firm; other explanatory variables such as environmental performance news or sector membership were unsuccessful in explaining variations in the market responses they observed. Equally, Accounting Forum has been interested in the interdependencies between social and environmental accounting which extend to the nexus between accounting and information to employees and other relevant parties. In this issue of Accounting Forum, R. G. Day presents evidence concerning the evolution of reporting about employees in the last century and its relationship with mandatory disclosure rules (Day, 2004). This is an interesting phenomenon, given that the current conceptual framework for corporate environmental reporting has only recently begun to analyse the relationship between voluntary and regulated disclosure. For example, accounting research is only just beginning to examine the relationships between the role that International Standards such as ISO 14001 have had on the reporting function. In Day’s article, however, he focuses on evidence from the UK and finds that there is an apparent disregard for statutory disclosures. Implicit in much of the Corporate Environmental and Social Reporting (CE&SR) literature is the supposition

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