Meanings of the term 'sustainable development' in Finnish corporate disclosures

被引:91
作者
Laine, Matias [1 ]
机构
[1] Univ Tampere, Dept Econ & Accounting, FIN-33014 Tampere, Finland
关键词
Corporate disclosures; Sustainable development; Discourse analysis; Discursive struggle;
D O I
10.1016/j.accfor.2005.04.001
中图分类号
F8 [财政、金融];
学科分类号
0202 ;
摘要
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 preeminent 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. Overall, in the disclosures, sustainable development is constructed as a win-win concept, which allows society to enjoy economic growth, environmental protection and social improvements with no trade-offs or radical restructurings in the social order. However, behind the usual business rhetoric, there is very little evidence of anyone actually walking this talk. Accordingly, this research calls for further discussion on companies' role in achieving sustainable development and on the business interpretation of sustainable development in general. (C) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
引用
收藏
页码:395 / 413
页数:19
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