Social and environmental accounting disclosure: a review of recent literature

• Main Authors: Hamzeh Adel Mohammad, Al Amosh, Noorhayati, Mansor
• Format: Conference or Workshop Item
• Language: English
• Published: 2018
• Subjects: H Social Sciences (General); HF5601 Accounting
• Online Access: http://eprints.unisza.edu.my/1425/1/FH03-FESP-18-22510.pdf; http://eprints.unisza.edu.my/1425/

Sustainability accounting or so-called social, environmental and economic accounting has received increasing attention in recent years from researchers, communities, governments and investors. This is consistent with the growing demand and sensitivity of all stakeholders in understanding how companies plan and manage the sustainability issues in their operations. The literature on accounting disclosure is very rich and addresses a wide range of disclosure related issues such as corporate practices in disclosure, type and level of disclosure, as well as factors affecting disclosure. Many studies have focused on determining which factors contribute to influence the disclosure level and they can be grouped into three categories. The first group examine the characteristics of companies, the second group studies the governance attributes and the third group looks at the ownership structure of companies as determinants of social and environmental accounting disclosure. The purpose of this article is to review very recent studies and examine the consistencies in findings of the factors affecting the disclosures in different countries, and business sectors. The results reveal a number of similarities as well as differences in the research findings of these most recent works. The present study contributes to the existing literature by highlighting the complexity of the accounting disclosure issues in corporate reporting and provides a direction for future research on corporate sustainability reporting.