Social and environmental accountability in developing countries

Ataur Belal

Research output: Chapter in Book/Published conference outputChapter (peer-reviewed)peer-review

Abstract

The principal aim of this chapter is to undertake a critical review of the social and environmental accountability of global business activities in developing countries. While global business activities have contributed to the economic development of developing countries they have many adverse social and environmental consequences which are often under-studied. I explore the role of accounting in making those consequences visible. The chapter, however, concludes that while social and environmental accounting has the potential to raise the visibility of social and environmental impacts of corporate activities it often fails to do so particularly under the current voluntary disclosure regime where corporations can choose what to report and how to report. This is even more pronounced in the developing countries because of their vulnerabilities arising from various social and environmental problems. The chapter argues for a case of ‘surrogate accountability’ as an alternative to the current corporate driven form of accountability.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationDevelopment-oriented corporate social responsibility
EditorsDima Jamali, Charlotte Karam, Michael Blowfield
Place of PublicationSheffield (UK)
Pages153-166
Number of pages14
Volume1
ISBN (Electronic)978-1-78353-246-9, 978-1-78353-244-5
Publication statusPublished - Jul 2015

Keywords

  • CSR
  • social accountability
  • environmental accountability
  • surrogate accountability
  • Bangladesh
  • developing countries

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