Matias Laine

Meanings of the term sustainable development` in Finnish corporate disclosures

Abstract There is an on-going discursive struggle over how the social and environmental problems related to modern societies should be understood and resolved. Sustainable development has become a pre-eminent concept in these discussions and businesses are increasingly employing the term in their communications. However, sustainable development means “different things to different people in different contexts” [Bebbington, J. (2001). Sustainable development: A review of the international development, business and accounting literature. Accounting Forum, 25(2), 128–157; see p. 129]. Thus, there have been recent calls in the literature to analyse what the companies are actually saying in their disclosures [Thomson, I., & Bebbington, J. (2005). Social and environmental reporting in the UK: A pedagogic evaluation. Critical Perspectives on Accounting; Kolk, A. (1999). Evaluating corporate environmental reporting. Business Strategy and the Environment, 8, 225–237]. Subscribing to the social construction of reality, this study critically assesses how the term ‘sustainable development’ is constructed in the disclosures of Finnish listed companies.

Ensuring legitimacy through rhetorical changes? A longitudinal interpretation of the environmental disclosures of a leading Finnish chemical company

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to shed further light on how corporate environmental disclosures are used to respond to institutional pressures stemming from the social context. Design/methodology/approach - Interpretive textual analysis is applied to discuss how the environmental disclosures of a leading Finnish chemical company developed during the period 1972-2005. This discussion is accompanied by an analysis of the social and institutional context in which the company has been operating. The development of the disclosures is reflected against changing social and institutional pressures identified from the perspective of new institutional sociology. Findings - The results show that during these 34 years there have been major transitions in the rhetoric used by the case company in its environmental disclosures. These transitions coincide with changes in the social and institutional context. It is argued that the case company has adjusted its disclosures to respond to the varying institutional pressures in order to maintain a legitimate position in society. Research limitations/implications - The subjective nature of the interpretive approach and the use of a single case limit the generalisability of the results. However, the longitudinal approach is argued to produce valuable insights on how corporate disclosures are used as a communication tool to portray the organisation in a certain light. Originality/value - The study adds to a growing body of literature using interpretive approaches in deconstructing corporate disclosures. The influence exerted by social and institutional pressures on corporate disclosures is highlighted, further research avenues can therefore be proposed.

Towards Sustaining the Status Quo: Business Talk of Sustainability in Finnish Corporate Disclosures 1987–2005

The paper seeks to shed more light on how businesses have used the language of sustainability in their disclosures. The study employs interpretive textual analysis and takes a closer look at how the corporate talk of sustainability has developed in the disclosures of three major Finnish companies during the period 1987–2005. In-depth understanding is sought by limiting the analysis of disclosures from four anchor points only. The findings indicate major changes in the ways the case corporations have used sustainability-related concepts over the two decades. Over time sustainability seems to have transformed from a possibly revolutionary concept into an evolutionary one, if not to one merely concerned with sustaining of the status quo. Moreover, whereas in the early disclosures the conceptualisation of sustainability appears to be rather polyphonic, in more recent years the companies use fairly similar rhetoric drawing on the discourse of weak sustainability. As a longitudinal study the paper makes a contribution to the still relatively limited body of research deconstructing corporate social and environmental disclosures from an interpretive standpoint. However, the study focuses only on the disclosures of three case companies in one particular country, and thus the generalisation of the findings must be approached with caution.

A New Era of Sustainability: CEO Reflections on Progress to Date, Challenges Ahead and the Impact of the Journey toward a Sustainable Economy

also concise and accessible introduction to a number of basic themes in ecological economics. These include, inter alia, the role of energy in economic growth and the possibility of decoupling economic growth from the increase of energy and materials usage, the functioning of the market mechanisms and the related questions of price, information and externalities, and the significance of understanding the sources and sinks of the material and energy needed for economic activities. In brief, Victor describes economies as ‘open systems situated within the biosphere on which they depend’ (p. 2) and says that ‘we ought to take the biophysical limits to economic growth more seriously than we do’ (p. 97). In the latter chapters of the book, Victor applies computer models to create scenarios of how Canada would do in a situation with only low or even no economic growth. The scenarios and the related discussions are easily understandable, which might be due to the fairly simple and highly aggregated models Victor uses. Nevertheless, the author shows that – in a computer world – social and economic objectives can be met in a rich country without relying on economic growth. Overall, Peter Victor’s take on economic growth joins the revived discussion about the limits to growth, good examples of which are the Décroissance and Decrecimiento movements in France and Spain. In Managing without Growth, Victor focuses mainly on economics, and his discussion of the policy implications is somewhat confined to Canada. Hence, I would recommend supplementing Victor’s text with other recent contributions such as Tim Jackson’s (2009) Prosperity without Growth and Serge Latouche’s Farewell to Growth (2009). Taken together, the different approaches of these books offer an interesting combination and should stimulate the reader to reflect not only on personal values, but also on the social and economic structures, which too often dictate how things are done on social, community and even individual levels.

A CEO with many messages: Comparing the ideological representations provided by different corporate reports

Abstract This study analyzes how corporate reporting can be used to reinforce particular worldviews in the ongoing discursive debate over sustainability. The use of language is compared in CEO letters from two types of disclosures: the annual and sustainability reports of two Finnish companies during 2000–2009. The analysis is based on Thompson’s (1990) schema regarding the modes of ideology. Significant differences are noted; the CEO letters in the annual reports prominently use the economic discourse of growth and profitability, but they rely on the ‘well-being’ discourse in the sustainability reports. Despite the difference in discourse, by using different forms of ideological strategies, both types of disclosure serve the dominant social paradigm. The findings presented in this study highlight the need to further develop corporate sustainability reporting practices.

Struggling Against Like-Minded Conformity in Order to Enliven SEAR: A Call for Passion

Abstract This paper reflects upon the behavioural and attitudinal issues of scholars within the community of social and environmental accounting research (SEAR) and seeks to stimulate debate by discussing our views on how this scientific community operates. The paper calls for passion and appeals to the emotions of SEAR individuals through a discussion on how to challenge current structures. More specifically, we address like-minded conformity as a threat to the future cohesion and health of SEAR. Thus, instead of blaming solely the Blue Meanies (Gray and Laughlin [2012] use ‘Blue Meanies’ as a metaphor for those factors which invade the world of scholarship, reflection, collegiality and enquiry. These Blue Meanies, which destroy the very essence of scholarship, include numerous modern phenomena, such as performance measurement, career mindedness, journal rankings and citation indexes. [Gray, R., and R. Laughlin. 2012. “It Was 20 Years Ago Today: Sgt. Pepper, Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Green Accounting and the Blue Meanies.” Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal 25 (2): 228–255]), we call for passion and appeal to individual responsibility. Overall, we argue for greater emphasis on the human and passionate elements of research as a way to curb the effects produced by catalysts of conformity. We maintain that this will enhance not only mutual respect and good scientific conversation but also the relevance and innovativeness of SEAR.

Just a passing fad?: The diffusion and decline of environmental reporting in the Finnish water sector

Purpose - – The study seeks to add to the understanding of the diffusion and decline of environmental reporting practices. Design/methodology/approach - – Semi-structured interviews and municipal water utility publications are analysed to identify factors which have influenced the diffusion and subsequent decline of environmental reporting practices within the Finnish water sector. Findings - – The findings suggest a dynamic view of the diffusion and decline of environmental reporting, showing that a variety of forces operated jointly over time. The initial swift diffusion may be mostly explained from the perspectives of fad and fashion, whereas the subsequent gradual decline of such reporting appears to have been driven mainly by internal organizational factors and a lack of outside pressure. Research limitations/implications - – The paper relies on a qualitative dataset, implying that extensive care is needed when seeking to generalise or apply the findings to different contexts or organizational fields. Practical implications - – The findings presented here should prove interesting for public sector managers, who are considering how, if at all, their organization should engage in social and environmental reporting. Originality/value - – The paper provides new insights into public sector sustainability reporting and presents reasons for its decline. In addition, the analysis illustrates the applicability of Abrahamsons typology of innovation diffusion to the study of social and environmental reporting practices.

Volume and Tone of Environmental Disclosure: A Comparative Analysis of a Corporation and its Stakeholders

Abstract In this paper, we seek to provide a description of disclosures arising from various stakeholder groups in the social sphere. As such, we extend Rodrigues article “Contrasting Realities: Corporate Environmental Disclosure and Stakeholder-Released Information” (2014. Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal 27 [1]: 119–149) by conducting a case study to examine and compare corporate and stakeholder communications made over a three-year period. We specifically focus on the volume and tone of environmental disclosures. We explore the topics emphasised by each party in their respective disclosures and analyse their tone by categorising the information as positive, negative or neutral. Through a detailed quantitative analysis, we highlight the differences in how various actors portray the organisation and its activities. We argue that this is of relevance since neither corporate nor stakeholder disclosures are merely passive reflections of reality, but rather, they play a part in constructing, forming and legitimating particular discourses and constructions of worldviews within society. Our findings demonstrate how these disclosures differ with regard to the topics covered and the tone used; hence, the stakeholder disclosures we analysed present an alternative view of the organisations activities. By systematically analysing and comparing different parties’ disclosures, we contribute to the literature by extending our understanding of stakeholder information releases in the light of corporate disclosures.

Still the kiss‐of‐death?: A personal reflection on encountering the mainstream paradigm as a PhD student

This article stems from a lunchtime discussion at the CSEAR summer school 2006. During that conversation Dave Owen mentioned that being interested in social and environmental accounting (SEA) was no longer the kiss-ofdeath that it used to be in the years before when CSEAR was first established. This is certainly true: there is now a vast amount of SEA literature to start from; a number of conferences in which to participate; and there now exist networks in which one can engage. The SEA community has grown and working in the field is now considered more legitimate than ever before. However, the situation might not be as straightforward in other countries as it is in the UK. For example, in Finland there are very few senior accounting academics with even the slightest interest in social and environmental accounting research. The lack of tradition also affects how the local and national research

The transformative potential of counter accounts: a case study of animal rights activism

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to analyze the dynamics and transformative potential associated with counter accounts. It explores how counter-accountants’ attempts to rearticulate animal production result in their own identity becoming constructed during the conflict setting and how this identity subsequently relates to the transformative potential of the counter accounts. Design/methodology/approach - The paper investigates counter accounts released during an animal rights activists’ campaign against industrial meat and dairy production in Finland. The counter accounts, consisting of secretly filmed videos from pig farms, contrasted the official depiction of animal farming and received wide publicity over several years. The main empirical data set consists of 21 interviews with a variety of parties that have a stake in the conflict. This data set is supplemented with a broad set of published documentary material. Findings - The authors find that the counter accounts managed, to some extent, to rearticulate the meaning of animal production, potentially resulting in the emergence of small-scale societal effects. When trying to undermine the counter-accountants’ radical political demand, the dominant social groups not only dismissed the counter accounts but also attempted to constitute the counter-accountants’ identity as irresponsible, militant and negligent, drawing a firm political boundary between “them” and “us.” Likewise, the counter-accountants seemed reluctant to communicate with representatives of the dominant regime, resulting in an antagonistic as opposed to an agonistic relationship between the two political groups. The paper also discusses ethical questions concerning the production of counter accounts, the importance of having a clearly articulated political vision, and the challenges related to evaluating whether the counter accounts have been successful. Originality/value - The paper provides insights into the design, use and reception of counter accounts in a real-life social setting, thus providing a direct response to a recent call by Thomson