SocialAccountingResearch.docVIP

Social Accounting Research As if the World Matters: Postalgia and a new Absurdism, Rob Gray, Jesse Dillard and Crawford Spence Prepared for the IRSPM/EGPA International Workshop on Social Audit, Social Accounting and Accountability, Charles University, Prague, 2008 DRAFT: 3B (February 2008): Address for Correspondence: Rob Gray, CSEAR, Gateway, School of Management, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, Fife, KY16 9SS, Scotland. Email: rob.gray@st-andrews.ac.uk Social Accounting Research As if the World Matters: Postalgia and a new absurdism Abstract This essay- principally directed at the academy - considers the question “Has the social accounting project failed?” in a deliberately speculative exploration of social accounting in its most inclusive articulation. The examination re-evaluates what social accounting is, could and/or should be. Our departure point is recent papers from Lehman and Milne, that deal with both the limitations and the possibilities of social accounting and those involved therewith. More specifically, we seek to understand whether social accounting could have succeeded more obviously in raising and maintaining an energetic discourse that is reflective of the distorted societal milieu, the crisis-ridden social and environmental context, and the pernicious system that our accounting and our research reifies, supports or, worse, ignores. The analysis attempts to offer some new directions and conceptions. A new(er) notion of social accountability in complex institutional situations emerges from the analysis reflecting promising advances in shadow, counter, and alternative accountings. In looking to the future, we consider: social accounting as an empty signifier; the possibilities of commitment to community overriding concerns for the subject matter; and an overwhelming, even immobilizing, sense of privilege. We seek to abandon hubris and the self-indulgence of the precious and embrace what a ‘good’ academic and a ‘good’ social accoun