Reclaiming the public sphere: possibilities and problems for corporate social and environmental accounting

Glen Lehman

Chapter 20 in Handbook of Critical Environmental Accountability and Sustainability, 2026, pp 318-340 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: This chapter explores cosmopolitan implications associated with the accounting harmonisation project. It takes up Hopwood's invitation to explore the effects of accounting harmonisation. This chapterexplores processes of globalisation by focusing on Kant's work on cosmopolitan governance. It uses Foucault's work on Kant's notion of a peaceful world. The accounting harmonisation project, which has been approved by accounting standard-setting bodies worldwide, is applied to this context. It is argued that international accounting harmonisation projects extend notions of accounting decision-usefulness and representational faithfulness. However, this only reflects an instrumental stance toward how we account for corporate activity and its impacts on communities and the natural environment. A critical conception of ‘accountability’ is developed in this chapterby teasing out ideas for critical accountability by comparing it with postmodern and post-structural accounting models. The aim is to balance modernity's dominant and instrumental stance to global social and environmental impacts, which harmonisation perpetuates.

Keywords: Social and Environmental Accounting; Habermas; Rawls; Liberal; Justice; Consensus; Power; Conjoint Philosophy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781802201765
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