79562 - Social Environmental Reporting

Learning outcomes

 

The Environmental Auditing and Corporate Social Responsibility course provides knowledge on the various dimensions of accounting and accountability, ethics, social responsibility and sustainability reporting for organisations.

The course includes conceptual bases of organisations, stakeholders, corporate social responsibility, business and ethical environment, business and government in global society, the corporate and the natural environment.

More specifically, the course aims to have students appreciate the way theory, regulation and practice contribute to align financial, environmental and social performance. According to this purpose, the course presents tools with the aim of: (1) facilitating management which may have a positive impact on the environment and society too (2) referring to different strategies, processes and tools to make an organisation act in a more sustainable manner; and 3) exploring the interaction between business operation and its surrounding.

At the end of the course students will be able to understand:

- why the relationship between business and society is becoming more complex?

- why business people and professionals need to be interested in corporate social responsibility, ethics, accountability and sustainability reporting?

- why business face the need of public scrutiny?

- can ethics be understood and applied in everyday business and how? Also, can ethical behavior contribute to profitability?

- what do we mean by corporate social responsibility, sustainable development and sustainability reporting? What is the meaning of social assurance?

- why ecological and environmental problems have forced business and governments to take actions?

Course contents

 

The outline of the course is based on the following topics:

1) Introduction: Organisations, Corporations and its Stakeholders

2) Corporate Social Responsibility

3) Ethics and Ethical Reasoning

4) Organizational Ethics and the Law

5) Global Corporate Citizenship and Sustainability Reporting

6) Frameworks for Sustainability Reporting

7) Ecology and Sustainable Development in global business

8) Managing Environmental Issues

This course is organised in 30 hours outlined in 10 classes.

Readings/Bibliography

 

Lawrence, A., Weber, J., Post, J., (2011), Business and Society. Stakeholders, Ethics, Public Policy, McGraw-Hill Irwin (you can purchase this online). Also, this text may be delivered online using McGraw-Hill's eBook technology. When ordering this title use ISBN 978-007-128936-8

Farneti F., Guthrie, J., (2009), Sustainability reporting by Australian public sector organisations: Why they report?”, Accounting Forum, Vol. 33 pp. 89-98.

Guthrie, J., Farneti F., (2008), GRI Sustainability reporting by Australian public sector organisations, Public Money & Management, Vol 28, No. 6, pp. 361-366.

Massa, L., [http://www.emeraldinsight.com/action/doSearch?ContribStored=Massa%2C+L] Farneti, F., and Scappini, B., (2015) "Developing a sustainability report in a small to medium enterprise: process and consequences", Meditari Accountancy Research, Vol. 23 Iss: 1, pp. 62 - 91 ISSN: 2049-372X, Doi: 10.1108/MEDAR-02-2014-0030 [http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/MEDAR-02-2014-0030]

Gherardi, L., Guthrie, J., and and Farneti F., (2014), Stand-Alone Sustainability Reporting and the use of GRI in Italian Vodafone: A longitudinal analysis, Procedia - Social and Behavioral, Vol. 164, pp. 11 – 25, Elsevier, ISSN: 1877-0428, doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.11.045 [http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.11.045]

Further reading:

Ball and Osborne, (2011), Social Accounting and Public Management, Routledge

Guthrie Marcon Russo Farneti (2014), Public Value Management Measurment and Reporting, Emerald

Gry Adams Owen (2014), Accpuntability, Social Responsibility and Sustainability, Pearson

Bebbington, Unerman and O'Dwyer, (2014), Sustainability Accounting and accpuntability, Routledge

Zabihollah Rezaee, (2015), Business Sustainability. Performance, Compliance, Accountability and Integrated Reporting, Greenleaf.

Further readings will be suggested.

Teaching methods

 

Teaching methods and, possibly, guest speakers

The pedagogical approach is based on a combination of lectures, interactive classes, seminars, research and case study.

Guest speakers will be invited to lecture contemporary issues.

Discussion questions

 

 

Assessment methods

 

1. Individual written assignment/Discussion questions

The topic for this written assignment will be given to you. It will be around 1000 words and will involve you in writing a critical appraisal of some of the approaches to a particular aspect of accounting, ethics, corporate social responsibility, sustainability reporting. The Individual written assignment is worth the 20% of the final mark of this course.

1. Group Class presentation

Case write-up. The groups will consist of approximately four students who will select the case organisation to be analysed.

The case will consist of group work which analyses a particular Italian or international organisation with specific focus on accounting, ethics, corporate social responsibility, sustainability reporting .

The Group Class presentation is worth the 30% of the final mark of this course.

1. End of term examination

A final one hour examination will be held at the end of term (during early June) and will consist of a number of essay questions related to different elements of the course programme and some close questions. The end of term examination is worth 50% of the final mark of this course. During the course a potential list of essay questions will be anticipated.

Teaching tools

 

Books

International articles

Case study method

Discussion questions

Individual written assignment

Group Class presentation

Office hours

See the website of Federica Farneti