IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/crpeac/v67-68y2020is1045235419300309.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Using accountability to shape the common good

Author

Listed:
  • Pesci, Caterina
  • Costa, Ericka
  • Andreaus, Michele

Abstract

This paper focuses on the relationship between accountability and the concept of the common good. From a theoretical viewpoint, the work is grounded on the notion of the common good as expressed by ancient philosophers, among whom Aquinas played a prominent role.

Suggested Citation

  • Pesci, Caterina & Costa, Ericka & Andreaus, Michele, 2020. "Using accountability to shape the common good," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 67.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:crpeac:v:67-68:y:2020:i::s1045235419300309
    DOI: 10.1016/j.cpa.2019.03.001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1045235419300309
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.cpa.2019.03.001?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Contrafatto, M. & Thomson, I. & Monk, E.A., 2015. "Peru, mountains and los niños: Dialogic action, accounting and sustainable transformation," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 117-136.
    2. O'Dwyer, Brendan & Unerman, Jeffrey, 2008. "The paradox of greater NGO accountability: A case study of Amnesty Ireland," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 33(7-8), pages 801-824.
    3. Kissling-Naf, Ingrid & Volken, Thomas & Bisang, Kurt, 2002. "Common property and natural resources in the Alps: the decay of management structures?," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 4(2), pages 135-147, June.
    4. Antonio Argandoña & Heidi Hoivik, 2009. "Corporate Social Responsibility: One Size Does Not Fit All. Collecting Evidence from Europe," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 89(3), pages 221-234, November.
    5. Demsetz, Harold, 2002. "Toward a Theory of Property Rights II: The Competition between Private and Collective Ownership," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 31(2), pages 653-672, June.
    6. Cho, Charles H. & Laine, Matias & Roberts, Robin W. & Rodrigue, Michelle, 2015. "Organized hypocrisy, organizational façades, and sustainability reporting," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 78-94.
    7. Foroughi, K. & Barnard, C. R. & Bennett, R.W. & Clay, D. K. & Conway, E. L. & Corfield, S. R. & Coughlan, A. J. & Harrison, J. S. & Hibbett, G. J. & Kendix, I. V. & Lanari-Boisclair, M. & O’ Brien, C., 2012. "Insurance accounting: a new era?," British Actuarial Journal, Cambridge University Press, vol. 17(3), pages 562-615, September.
    8. Sekhar, Late R.C. & Rajagopalan, A.V., 2012. "Management Accounting," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195683608.
    9. Doris M. Merkl-Davies & Niamh M. Brennan, 2011. "A conceptual framework of impression management: new insights from psychology, sociology and critical perspectives," Accounting and Business Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(5), pages 415-437, December.
    10. Daphne Rixon, 2010. "Stakeholder Engagement in Public Sector Agencies: Ascending the Rungs of the Accountability Ladder," International Journal of Public Administration, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(7), pages 347-356.
    11. Roberts, John & Scapens, Robert, 1985. "Accounting systems and systems of accountability -- understanding accounting practices in their organisational contexts," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 10(4), pages 443-456, October.
    12. Doris M. Merkl-Davies & Niamh Brennan, 2007. "Discretionary disclosure strategies in corporate narratives : incremental information or impression management?," Open Access publications 10197/2907, Research Repository, University College Dublin.
    13. Killian, Sheila, 2010. "“No accounting for these people”: Shell in Ireland and accounting language," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 21(8), pages 711-723.
    14. Barulina E.V & Barulina M.S, 2012. "Issues Of Managerial Accounting Methodology," European Journal of Business and Economics, Central Bohemia University, vol. 4(0), pages 9-141:4, September.
    15. Hopwood, Anthony G., 1983. "On trying to study accounting in the contexts in which it operates," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 8(2-3), pages 287-305, May.
    16. Deegan, Craig, 2013. "The accountant will have a central role in saving the planet … really? A reflection on ‘green accounting and green eyeshades twenty years later’," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 24(6), pages 448-458.
    17. Ericka Costa & Tommaso Ramus, 2012. "The Italian Economia Aziendale and Catholic Social Teaching: How to Apply the Common Good Principle at the Managerial Level," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 106(1), pages 103-116, March.
    18. Nicholls, Alex, 2010. "Institutionalizing social entrepreneurship in regulatory space: Reporting and disclosure by community interest companies," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 394-415, May.
    19. Walker, Stephen P., 2016. "Revisiting the roles of accounting in society," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 41-50.
    20. Colin Dey & Jane Gibbon, 2017. "Moving on from Scaling Up: Further Progress in Developing Social Impact Measurement in the Third Sector," Social and Environmental Accountability Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(1), pages 66-72, January.
    21. Rob Gray & Richard Laughlin, 2012. "It was 20 years ago today," Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 25(2), pages 228-255, February.
    22. Nicholls, Alex, 2009. "'We do good things, don't we?': 'Blended Value Accounting' in social entrepreneurship," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 34(6-7), pages 755-769, August.
    23. Ericka Costa & Marisa Agostini, 2016. "Mandatory Disclosure about Environmental and Employee Matters in the Reports of Italian-Listed Corporate Groups," Social and Environmental Accountability Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(1), pages 10-33, April.
    24. Hershey Friedman Ph.D. & Frimette Kass-Shraibman, Ph.D., CPA, 2012. "Enhancing the Accounting Major with Online Learning," International Journal of Business and Social Research, LAR Center Press, vol. 2(7), pages 13-20, December.
    25. H. Scott Gordon, 1954. "The Economic Theory of a Common-Property Resource: The Fishery," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 62(2), pages 124-124.
    26. Joseph P.H. Fan & T.J. Wong & Tianyu Zhang, 2012. "Founder Succession and Accounting Properties," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 29(1), pages 283-311, March.
    27. Séverine Deneulin & Nicholas Townsend, 2007. "Public goods, global public goods and the common good," International Journal of Social Economics, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 34(1/2), pages 19-36, January.
    28. Georg Dettmann & Jochen Möbert & Christian Weistroffer, 2012. "Bilateral current account rebalancing in the EMU," Intereconomics: Review of European Economic Policy, Springer;ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics;Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), vol. 47(4), pages 257-264, July.
    29. Michelle Rodrigue & Charles H. Cho & Matias Laine, 2015. "Volume and Tone of Environmental Disclosure: A Comparative Analysis of a Corporation and its Stakeholders," Social and Environmental Accountability Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(1), pages 1-16, April.
    30. Quattrone, Paolo, 2004. "Accounting for God: accounting and accountability practices in the Society of Jesus (Italy, XVI-XVII centuries)," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 29(7), pages 647-683, October.
    31. Les Hardy & Harry Ballis, 2013. "Accountability and giving accounts," Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 26(4), pages 539-566, May.
    32. Deegan, Craig, 2017. "Twenty five years of social and environmental accounting research within Critical Perspectives of Accounting: Hits, misses and ways forward," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 65-87.
    33. P. B. Anand, 2004. "Financing the Provision of Global Public Goods," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(2), pages 215-237, February.
    34. Edella Schlager & Elinor Ostrom, 1992. "Property-Rights Regimes and Natural Resources: A Conceptual Analysis," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 68(3), pages 249-262.
    35. Theodore C. Bergstrom, 2010. "The Uncommon Insight of Elinor Ostrom," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 112(2), pages 245-261, June.
    36. Vivien Beattie & Sarah Jane Thomson, 2007. "Lifting the lid on the use of content analysis to investigate intellectual capital disclosures," Accounting Forum, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(2), pages 129-163, June.
    37. H. Scott Gordon, 1954. "The Economic Theory of a Common-Property Resource: The Fishery," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Chennat Gopalakrishnan (ed.), Classic Papers in Natural Resource Economics, chapter 9, pages 178-203, Palgrave Macmillan.
    38. Lehman, Glen, 2017. "The language of environmental and social accounting research: The expression of beauty and truth," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 30-41.
    39. Edwards, Michael & Hulme, David, 1996. "Too close for comfort? the impact of official aid on nongovernmental organizations," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 24(6), pages 961-973, June.
    40. Parker, Lee D., 2011. "Twenty-one years of social and environmental accountability research: A coming of age," Accounting forum, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 1-10.
    41. Perkiss, Stephanie & Moerman, Lee, 2020. "Hurricane Katrina: Exploring justice and fairness as a sociology of common good(s)," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 67.
    42. Kelum Jayasinghe & Teerooven Soobaroyen, 2009. "Religious “spirit” and peoples' perceptions of accountability in Hindu and Buddhist religious organizations," Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 22(7), pages 997-1028, September.
    43. Cho, Charles H. & Roberts, Robin W. & Patten, Dennis M., 2010. "The language of US corporate environmental disclosure," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 431-443, May.
    44. McKernan, John Francis, 2012. "Accountability as aporia, testimony, and gift," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 258-278.
    45. Alnoor Ebrahim & V. Kasturi Rangan, 2010. "The Limits of Nonprofit Impact: A Contingency Framework For Measuring Social Performance," Harvard Business School Working Papers 10-099, Harvard Business School.
    46. Gil Kim & Lian An & Yoonbai Kim, 2012. "The behaviour of the real exchange rate and current account," Macroeconomics and Finance in Emerging Market Economies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 5(2), pages 139-160, December.
    47. Matias Laine & Eija Vinnari, 2017. "The transformative potential of counter accounts: a case study of animal rights activism," Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 30(7), pages 1481-1510, September.
    48. Shona Russell & Markus J. Milne & Colin Dey, 2017. "Accounts of nature and the nature of accounts," Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 30(7), pages 1426-1458, September.
    49. Jane Gibbon & Colin Dey, 2011. "Developments in Social Impact Measurement in the Third Sector: Scaling Up or Dumbing Down?," Social and Environmental Accountability Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(1), pages 63-72, April.
    50. Lee D. Parker, 2011. "Twenty-one years of social and environmental accountability research: A coming of age," Accounting Forum, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(1), pages 1-10, March.
    51. Tim Murphy & Jeff Parkey, 2016. "An economic analysis of the philosophical common good," International Journal of Social Economics, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 43(8), pages 823-840, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Forsberg, Per, 2023. "Symbols in wood as a means of reciprocity: Accounting and social cohesion in pluralistic economies," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 96(C).
    2. Dolores Gallardo-Vázquez & Sabina Scarpellini & Alfonso Aranda-Usón & Carlos Fernández-Bandera, 2024. "How does the circular economy achieve social change? Assessment in terms of sustainable development goals," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(1), pages 1-18, December.
    3. Ghio, Alessandro & Verona, Roberto, 2022. "Unfolding institutional plurality in hybrid organizations through practices: The case of a cooperative bank," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 54(4).
    4. Hackett, Franki & Janský, Petr, 2023. "Incremental improvement: Evaluating the emancipatory impact of public country-by-country reporting," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 96(C).
    5. Giovanna Centorrino, 2020. "Covid-19 and the Search for the Common Good: The Case of Parmon Spa (Italy)," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(16), pages 1-23, August.
    6. Sabina Scarpellini, 2022. "Social impacts of a circular business model: An approach from a sustainability accounting and reporting perspective," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 29(3), pages 646-656, May.
    7. Guillaume Plaisance, 2023. "Accountability in French non-profit organizations: between paradox and complexity," Post-Print hal-04430976, HAL.
    8. Andrew, Jane & Baker, Max & Huang, Casey, 2023. "Data breaches in the age of surveillance capitalism: Do disclosures have a new role to play?," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    9. Rouault, Julie & Albertini, Elisabeth, 2022. "Reconciling the social sector with external accountability requirements: Lessons from stewardship theory," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 485-498.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Frey-Heger, Corinna & Barrett, Michael, 2021. "Possibilities and limits of social accountability: The consequences of visibility as recognition and exposure in refugee crises," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    2. Favotto, Alvise & McKernan, John Francis & Zou, Yanru, 2022. "Speculative accountability for animal kinship," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    3. Ghio, Alessandro & Verona, Roberto, 2022. "Unfolding institutional plurality in hybrid organizations through practices: The case of a cooperative bank," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 54(4).
    4. Noemi Sinkovics & Rudolf R. Sinkovics & Jason Archie-Acheampong, 2021. "Small- and medium-sized enterprises and sustainable development: In the shadows of large lead firms in global value chains," Journal of International Business Policy, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 4(1), pages 80-101, March.
    5. Victoria Pagan & Kathryn Haynes & Stefanie Reissner, 2023. "Accountable Selves and Responsibility Within a Global Forum," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 187(2), pages 255-270, October.
    6. Yasmin, Sofia & Ghafran, Chaudhry, 2019. "The problematics of accountability: Internal responses to external pressures in exposed organisations," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    7. Yasmin, Sofia & Ghafran, Chaudhry & Haniffa, Roszaini, 2018. "Exploring de-facto accountability regimes in Muslim NGOs," Accounting forum, Elsevier, vol. 42(3), pages 235-247.
    8. Perkiss, Stephanie & Bernardi, Cristiana & Dumay, John & Haslam, Jim, 2021. "A sticky chocolate problem: Impression management and counter accounts in the shaping of corporate image," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    9. Clément Feger & Laurent Mermet, 2017. "A blueprint towards accounting for the management of ecosystems," Post-Print hal-01930913, HAL.
    10. Jane Andrew & Max Baker, 2020. "Corporate Social Responsibility Reporting: The Last 40 Years and a Path to Sharing Future Insights," Abacus, Accounting Foundation, University of Sydney, vol. 56(1), pages 35-65, March.
    11. Dewi, Miranti Kartika & Manochin, Melina & Belal, Ataur, 2021. "Towards a conceptual framework of beneficiary accountability by NGOs: An Indonesian case study," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    12. Lai, Alessandro & Leoni, Giulia & Stacchezzini, Riccardo, 2014. "The socializing effects of accounting in flood recovery," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 25(7), pages 579-603.
    13. Alharthi, Amal & Cortese, Corinne & Moerman, Lee & Tanima, Farzana, 2022. "Surveillance capitalism in the middle east retail sector," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    14. Janni Grouleff Nielsen & Rainer Lueg & Dennis van Liempd, 2019. "Managing Multiple Logics: The Role of Performance Measurement Systems in Social Enterprises," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(8), pages 1-23, April.
    15. Warren Maroun & Andre Prinsloo, 2020. "Drivers of combined assurance in a sustainable development context: Evidence from integrated reports," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(8), pages 3702-3719, December.
    16. Cuckston, Thomas, 2018. "Creating financial value for tropical forests by disentangling people from nature," Accounting forum, Elsevier, vol. 42(3), pages 219-234.
    17. Tweedie, Jonathan, 2023. "The emancipatory potential of counter accounting: A Žižekian critique," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 95(C).
    18. Gregory D. Saxton & Dean Neu, 2022. "Twitter-Based Social Accountability Processes: The Roles for Financial Inscriptions-Based and Values-Based Messaging," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 181(4), pages 1041-1064, December.
    19. Tweedie, Dale & Luzia, Karina, 2023. "In place, with power: (Re)conceptualising accountability in national non-government organisations," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    20. C. Feger & Laurent Mermet, 2021. "Advances in accounting for biodiversity and ecosystems: a typology focusing upon the environmental results imperative [Innovations comptables pour la biodiversité et les écosystèmes : une typologie," Post-Print hal-02549016, HAL.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:crpeac:v:67-68:y:2020:i::s1045235419300309. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/critical-perspectives-on-accounting/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.