External Accounts

Abstract

First paragraph: Rising levels of voluntary, unregulated corporate social, environmental and sustainability reporting (SER hereafter) have failed to satisfy a wide range of critics, who have argued that they exhibit a number of major shortcomings, including, inter alia: incompleteness (Belal, 2002; Adams, 2004; Bouten et al., 2011), unreliability (Swift and Dando, 2002; O’Dwyer and Owen, 2005); silencing and/or manipulation of the views of stakeholders (Owen et al., 2001; Unerman and Bennett, 2004; Archel et al., 2011); falsely legitimating businesses’ belief in the sustainability of their operations (Brown and Deegan, 1998; Campbell, 2000); promoting a ‘business as usual’ agenda (Larrinaga-Gonzalez and Bebbington, 2001); conveying weak versions of sustainable development (Bebbington and Thomson, 1996); and managerial capture of the social and environmental agenda (Owen et al., 2000; O’Dwyer, 2003; Baker, 2010).