RR39 - Social and Environmental Accounting Education in British Universities
Owen, Humphrey, Lewis, 1994
Executive summary
Recent years have witnessed a considerable resurgence of academic and professional interest in social accounting issues, albeit with attention being overwhelmingly focused on one element - the environment. International initiatives, notably those emanating from the European Union, suggest that the ACCA's identification of social and environmental accounting as a key area of innovative research within which it intends to play a leading role is not misplaced. However, despite this encouraging background, there is little evidence of any significant response from accounting practitioners towards the developing social and environmental agenda. Suggestions that deficiencies in accounting education are in part to blame for this current impasse are achieving increasing prominence.
Whilst some influential groups have called for the introduction of certain environmental components into degree (and professional) syllabi, the general nature of recent critiques of current degree programmes has been fundamental enough to suggest that piecemeal solutions are unlikely to prove adequate in fostering greater levels of social and environmental awareness amongst the next generation of accounting professionals. An alternative approach, gaining in prominence, entails exposing students to material that fundamentally addresses the social and ethical functioning of accounting practices and which acknowledges that the social, and indeed the environmental, is a contested and ever changing domain. Courses in social and environmental accounting, by challenging traditional perspectives in accounting, have been put forward by some commentators as providing a ready mechanism through which such ends can be achieved. However, with the exception of a few accounts of individual personal experiences, there is a paucity of evidence relating to the coverage given to social and environmental accounting issues in university accounting curricula, the impact of such teaching and the problems encountered by those involved in developing the subject area.
The two principal aims of this report are to identify the degree to which students are exposed to social and environmental accounting material in their undergraduate degree studies and to explore more qualitative issues concerning, amongst other things, the aims of such teaching, the nature of the material being covered or, alternatively, reasons for neglecting the subject area. These questions are addressed by means of a questionnaire survey, covering the entire population of British universities offering undergraduate accounting courses, and a subsequent programme of interviews with academics whose teaching and research interests centre on the social functioning of the accounting craft. Key findings to emerge from the research include:
- The coverage given to social and environmental accounting material in many undergraduate accounting degree programmes is peripheral, with the subject being absent from many schemes. When covered, it tends to be taught as a final year option, with a generally low student take-up rate, or as a small part of another (usually financial) accounting course. The subject area has yet to establish itself as generally accepted 'core' accounting degree material, although there are some signs of increasing acceptance reflected in plans to introduce new courses in the subject area, most notably in some of the 'new' universities.
- There is significant correspondence between an established research history in the subject area and its introduction into university accounting curricula, with individual initiative playing a key role in the establishment of new courses in social and environmental accounting and, indeed, the maintenance of existing ones.
- There is developing dominance of 'environmental' over 'social' issues, with course material influenced by changing agendas in the general and professional accounting media. The extent and manner of such influence raises certain question marks over both the conceptual basis of what is being taught in the name of social and environmental accounting and the rationales for persisting with more traditional accounting courses.
- A significant role is played by student expectations and perceived professional accreditation requirements in shaping academic perceptions of what is considered to be 'core' accounting degree material and the acceptability, or otherwise, of social and environmental accounting teaching.
- There are serious obstacles in developing innovative courses arising from increasingly severe resource constraints in higher education and the 'short termism' fostered by the ever pervasive influence of research selectivity exercises.
Issues raised in this research study suggest a need to urgently examine the structure, scope and aims of British undergraduate accounting programmes in general. In particular, given the recent patterns of declining professional training vacancies and the significantly expanding accounting student numbers in universities, the continued dominance of the core curriculum by a largely professionally oriented, technicist view of accounting education is increasingly unacceptable. An alternative perspective worthy of serious consideration is that of accounting studies at undergraduate level being structured more centrally around notions of social science and fundamentally seeking to address the significance of the role and functioning of accounting practices in society. Ironically, this could enable accounting degrees to secure a new, and more socially meaningful, relevance in an era in which the social ramifications and public policy implications of accounting are coming under increasing scrutiny.