Social and Environmental Accounting and Engagement Research: Reflections on the state of the art and new research avenues

Abstract

This article concerns itself with Social and Environmental Accounting (and) Reporting (SEAR) and related academic literature. In particular, the focus is on the works which have adopted an “engagement approach” to explore SEAR practices. The purpose of the paper is to analyze, through a literature-review based method, the existing literature in order to propose a pedagogic-suggestive “mapping” of the “state of the art” of the existing literature. Drawing on Thomson’s (2007) work, the present paper aims to provide an illustrative-heuristic taxonomy of the current works to assist scholars, who are interested in SEAR issues, to identify gaps and contradictions which may then be addressed.