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Journal of Business Ethics

Erschienen in:

13.12.2014

Changing Social and Environmental Reporting Systems

verfasst von: Mia Kaspersen, Thomas Riise Johansen

Erschienen in: Journal of Business Ethics | Ausgabe 4/2016

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Abstract

Based on a case study of a large multinational group, this paper addresses the way in which social and environmental reporting (SER) systems were changed and the consequences and controversies associated with this change. Drawing on Power’s work on the processes by which things are made auditable via underlying systems, we focus on how and why a specific programme with auditability as its ultimate aim changed the basis on which the external social and environmental report was prepared. Our analysis demonstrates that the perceived alignment with the financial report preparation and the explicit pursuit of auditability legitimized SER and paved the way for data systems to be changed. The programme borrowed authority from financial accounting technologies not only to make a system change but also to push SER internally, as we suggest that an intraorganizational group used the programme to ensure the existence and organizational status of SER. However, we also illustrate some of the practical challenges associated with this change, which include issues related to internal control and the establishment of organizational boundaries.

Vorheriger Artikel Do Leveraged Firms Underinvest in Corporate Social Responsibility? Evidence from Health and Safety Programs in U.S. Firms

Nächster Artikel Accounting for the Unaccountable: Biodiversity Reporting and Impression Management

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The GRI refers to reliability as a quality principle for the external report and defines it as “the organization should gather, record, compile, analyze and disclose information and processes used in the preparation of a report in a way that they can be subject to examination and that establishes the quality and materiality of the information” (GRI part 2, 2013, p. 16). The guidelines further emphasize that this implies documentation and internal controls: “In designing information systems, organizations should anticipate that the systems could be examined as part of an external assurance process” (GRI part 2, 2013, p. 16). The definition of reliability was in the exposure draft of the GRI guidelines from 1999 and in the 2000 version of the guidelines related to information being free of bias and error as well as being faithfully represented. However, those characteristics have disappeared from the guidelines, and it is striking that the definition of reliability is now so strongly related to being prepared for audit and not specifically addressing whether the information, for example, is accurate or representing what it purports to represent.

Problematization is also a key notion in actor-network theory (e.g., Callon 1986). Here, however, we adopt the understanding of the notion as it is put forward in governmentality studies (e.g., Miller and Rose 2008).

Power does not use the term problematization. However, the ‘programmatic elements of a practice’ is a key feature of his works and it covers ‘the ideas and concepts which shape the mission of the practice’ (Power 1997b, p. 6).

A discourse in this paper is understood as covering certain ideas, attitudes, beliefs, and practices.

The first two interviews were conducted with three people at Group SEQ, who initiated and managed the process of acquiring the information system. These meetings provided an overall framing of the process, and this group of people served as sources of information during subsequent interviews and during the gathering of background and other more specific data (McKinnon 1988).

Other materials included published social and environmental reports, media clippings, and NGO reports. These materials were not used directly in the analysis but provided general background knowledge and reflections in the initial phases of the project.

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Titel: Changing Social and Environmental Reporting Systems
verfasst von: Mia Kaspersen
Thomas Riise Johansen
Publikationsdatum: 13.12.2014
Verlag: Springer Netherlands
Erschienen in: Journal of Business Ethics / Ausgabe 4/2016
Print ISSN: 0167-4544
Elektronische ISSN: 1573-0697
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-014-2496-x

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