Accountability and Social Accounting for Social and Non-profit Organizations

Traditional economic and accounting theories focus on investor-owned enterprises which pursue the production of goods and services with the aim of maximizing the economic value for the shareholders. This book offers an alternative perspective. It focuses on non-profit organizations (NPOs) that produce goods and services with the intention of maximizing social value for the broader community. NPOs have indeed expanded in number, variety, scope and societal importance and impact in many countries over recent decades. Yet only in more recent times have organizational and accounting researchers begun to seriously address the identities, roles, processes and impacts of this sector. Within the accounting discipline, attention to and the role of social and NPOs has been growing, particularly with respect to issues of accountability and social accounting. The social accounting practices of NPOs have been investigated as mechanisms of accountability, a process through which an organization evaluates, reports and enhances its social and environmental practices, especially by means of stakeholder dialogue. Accordingly, this book presents research addressing three main subjects: (i) the limitations of conventional accounting for NPOs, (ii) the meaning of accountability in relation to their broad scope remit and (iii) the potential of social and environmental accounting for contributing to the accountability of social and NPOs. After a brief description of different types of NPOs, the authors scrutinize the performance measurement adopted by NPOs and propose the development of broader and multidirection