ORCID Profile
0000-0001-7115-5817
Current Organisation
University of Tasmania
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Publisher: Emerald
Date: 28-02-2023
DOI: 10.1108/MEDAR-08-2021-1425
Abstract: This paper aims to interrogate the accountabilities of the foreign companies which have directly invested in the Iraqi oil and gas industry. Using both qualitative and quantitative methodologies, the authors first map the stakeholder accountabilities (qualitative) of foreign oil and gas companies and second, the authors seek to demonstrate quantitatively – through structural break tests and publicly available sustainability reports – whether these companies have accounted for their environmental and social impacts both to Iraqi people and to the global community. The authors find that the Western democratic values embedded in stakeholder theory, in terms of sustainability, do not hold the same meaning in cultural contexts where conceptions and application of Western democratic values are deeply problematic. This paper identifies a crucial problem in the global oil supply chain and problematises the application of traditional theoretical approaches in the context of the Iraqi oil and gas industry. Implications of this study include the refocus of attention onto the local and global environmental impacts of the Iraqi oil and gas industry by foreign direct investments. Such a refocus highlights the reasons and ways that decision makers should accommodate these less salient stakeholders. The primary contribution is the critique of the lack of environmental accountability of foreign direct investment companies in the Iraqi oil and gas industry. The authors also make theoretical and methodological contributions via the problematisation of the cultural bias inherent in traditional stakeholder theories, and by introducing a quantitative method to evaluate the accountabilities of companies.
Publisher: Emerald
Date: 04-2022
DOI: 10.1108/MEDAR-09-2020-1023
Abstract: This paper aims to examine the role numbers play in corporate environmental reporting. To deeply examine the ontological meanings of enumeration in the context of nature, the histories of number and accounting are explored. Some key tropes emerge from these histories, namely, distancing and control. To explore some of the implications of quantifying nature, three years of environmental reports of ten companies from the ASX200 are analysed through a Barthsian lens. Ex les of enumerating nature are highlighted and explored in terms of what this means for the corporate relationship with nature. This study has focussed on some specific aspects of nature that are commonly counted in corporate environmental reporting: carbon, energy, water, bio ersity and waste. This study explores how monetisation and obfuscation are used and how this informs the myth that nature is controllable. This study finds that quantifying nature constructs a metaphorical distance between the company and the natural world which erodes the sense of connection associated with an authentic care for nature. These findings are critical in light of the detrimental impact of corporate activity on the natural world. The reports themselves, while promoted as a tool to help mitigate damage to the natural environment, are implicitly perpetuating its harm. Given the extent to which companies are responsible for environmental damage and the potential capacity embedded in corporate communications, better understanding the implications of quantifying nature could powerfully instigate a new but necessary approach to nature. The insights of this paper are relevant to those aiming to improve the underpinning approaches used in corporate environmental reporting. This paper provides new understandings of the ways quantitative expression of environmental values constructs the myth that nature is controllable.
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 05-09-2023
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 07-04-2018
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 06-2023
Publisher: Emerald
Date: 12-03-2021
DOI: 10.1108/AAAJ-03-2020-4466
Abstract: Using a dialogic approach to narrative analysis through the lens of fairytale, this paper explores the shared construction of corporate environmental stories. The analysis provided aims to reveal the narrative messaging which is implicit in corporate reporting, to contrast corporate and stakeholder narratives and to bring attention to the ubiquity of storytelling in corporate communications. This paper examines a series of events in which a single case company plays the central role. The environmental section of the case company's sustainability report is examined through the lens of fairytale analysis. Next, two counter accounts are constructed which foreground multiple stakeholder accounts and retold as fairytales. The dialogic nature of accounts plays a critical role in how stakeholders understand the environmental impacts of a company. Storytelling mechanisms have been used to shape the perspective and sympathies of the report reader in favour of the company. We use these same mechanisms to create two collective counter accounts which display different sympathies. This research reveals how the narrative nature of corporate reports may be used to fabricate a particular perspective through storytelling. By doing so, it challenges the authority of the version of events provided by the company and gives voice to collective counter accounts which are shared by and can be disseminated to other stakeholders. This paper provides a unique perspective to understanding corporate environmental reporting and the stories shared by and with external stakeholders by drawing from a novel link between fairytale, storytelling and counter accounting.
Publisher: Routledge
Date: 04-07-2019
Start Date: 2021
End Date: 2022
Funder: Chartered Institute of Management Accountants
View Funded ActivityStart Date: 2018
End Date: 2018
Funder: Ian Potter Foundation
View Funded ActivityStart Date: 2020
End Date: 2021
Funder: CPA Australia
View Funded Activity