Critical Perspectives on Accounting- MMPA 516
Journal

This Journal provided me an opportunity to express my views and critically analyze the different aspects to which accounting relates. It had been a great experience and a great approach to express ones opinion.

2014
Harleen Kaur Juneja
300289064
6/3/2014
Critical Perspectives on Accounting- MMPA 516
Journal

This Journal provided me an opportunity to express my views and critically analyze the different aspects to which accounting relates. It had been a great experience and a great approach to express ones opinion.

2014
Harleen Kaur Juneja
300289064
6/3/2014

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. INTRODUCTION Page 2

2. ACCOUNTING IN ITS WIDER SENSE Page 3

3. ACCOUNTING AND EDUCATION Page 4

4. ACCOUNTING AND WAR Page 8

5. ACCOUNTING AND GLOBAL FINANCIAL CRISIS Page 11

6. ACCOUNTING AND CSR Page 13

7. REFERENCES Page 15

INTRODUCTION
In this course I was surprised to see the other face of accounting. Till date I use to see the stereotypical accounting course that teaches us on a pattern to make us number crunchers who can arrange, categorize, and report details in a manner so unreasoned that only other accounting student can understand them. I had not seen to possess the more important reasoning skills that are necessary for the real life problem solving and business leadership, except to my exception in the MMPA 511 course taught by Arun Elias who allowed us to participate equally and made us think critically on the subject matter.
What I think about this course is that Critical Accounting aims to provide a opportunity for the growing number of accounting researches and practitioners who realize that conformist theory and practice is ill-suited to the challenges of the modern environment, and that accounting practices and commercial behaviour are intricately connected with many allocative, distributive, social, and ecological problems of our era. From such a concern, a new literature seeks to reformulate corporate, social, and political activity, and the theoretical and practical means by which we detain and affect that activity. Critical perspective on Accounting deals with such above scenario and helps build a subject with its aim to provide a forum for such growing accounting perspectives.
This Journal brings together the different emerging topics that I had an opportunity to discuss and read through in relation to accounting and the broader social science disciplines which are concerned to illustrate how deeply implicated accounting is in the allocative, social, and ecological problems in today’s time.

1. Accounting has a wider sense and implications
It was inspirational to come across such new subject that crosses the disciplinary confines for the course till date. What I today learnt was that accounting can also be included with those discipline that are apprehensive with aspects of human society as it is also like a system of thought that is designed by us to assist us in decision making and to influence at certain stages.
Old-style accounting theory and practice could be acquiescent with broader economic accounting such that accounting could be used to gesture wider social issues and concerns. There seemed to be a need for change in the way accounting is perceived and ensure that it properly serves the need of more broadly defined users. The accountings use and its consequence as a good or bad discipline depend on its use. Complying with its standards properly and in favour of society makes it good or bad.
Therefore, we could say that accounting is not merely a impartial, technical venture but it reflects the economic, social and political viewpoints of those who are engaged in its practice. It is apparent that today’s accounting systems find their meaning and nature in the historical and social context of the organisations of which they are a part. Accounting has been affected by different influential factors. Accounting has always been affected by the environment in which it operates and on the other hand it has always been one of the factors that has influenced its environment. Accounting is affected by a variety of historical, economic, socio-cultural, and institutional and other various non-accounting factors.
One of the characteristics of an accounting system influenced by the Roman law for example is the legalisation of accounting standards and procedures. Prescribed by regulations, accounting rules are very detailed and comprehensive, leaving a very small margin for interpretation and no possibility for improvising.
Political system can also be taken as an influential factor as we see in our past literature of colonial inheritance, where invading countries impose their political, as well as their accounting systems on the countries they have conquered and colonised and it Is the fact that even today countries are using same principals even though they no longer suits them.
Many of these factors those which are included in the political sphere of our society such as principle of Laissez Faire, representational democracy, secularity, rule of law etc. influence accounting and has given shape to it. Our civil society including our schools, families, churches, sports clubs, hospitals have a major role to play in defining the rules of accounting. Moreover, economic society reflects the rules and regulations of accounting.
Moreover, accounting is based on all these social contexts and comes from other social theories and models such as democracy, equality, human rights, freedom, individualism, justice, rationality, enlightenment, progress and free market. All these shape and model the discipline of accounting.

2. Accounting and Education
In today’s lecture we discussed and looked upon the state of accounting education and its potential link to the broader critical accounting project. Today we looked upon the importance of how we teach is equally important to what is being taught. We explored today the ‘how’ of teaching approaches to education and distinguishing between banking education and dialogical education. We studied the idea of hidden curriculum.
Accountants have often failed to “focus on the broader skills that will support a lifetime of professional success. This is mainly often due to narrow focus of accounting education. Whereas, the focus should be on developing logical and theoretical thinking in contrast to memorizing rapidly expanding professional standards.”
As we have experienced we as accounting students are taught to memorize the rules and answers rather than to apply thinking processes to the problem at hand. The whole educational process can be seen as one which promotes dualistic thinking among students. The role tutor in our courses today hold is merely that of a fact finder and conveyer. We as students receive those facts, learn to distinguish them from the wrong ones and then narrates the facts on examinations.
We do not learn to see the other shades, areas in which meaningful ambiguity occurs or to identify substitutions to the usually correct answers, evaluate the confirmations supporting those substitutes, and reach at a estimate of their standing. In contrast what we do is that we are encouraged to learn those correct answers.
The Problem
The real problem that I can see with such a pattern is that this pattern could be very useful if the accounting and business were static, however, the real is fact is exactly opposite. The fast changing environment of accounting does not match the teaching method. It is essential that an accountant must get by with persistent revisions in the GAAP, the yearly changing tax codes, produced financial statements, complex forms of business ownership and outlandish financial instruments. We as an accounting students today are taught only those answers which are at present acceptable and I don’t think that we would be able to cope with the pace of changes in profession.
Thereafter, I read the reading provided to us (I. Thomson, J. Bebbington/Critical Perspectives on Accounting 15 (2004) 609-628 ) and I conform that education seriously has become a political process which “either functions as an instrument that is used to facilitate the integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring out conformity to it, or it can become “the practice of freedom”, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world. (Freire, 1996, p.6)”
Therefore, we can imply from this conception of education that education mainly has three roles in any society. It can play a constitutive role in conforming us that we are aware of the world. Also, it is used to maintain existing power differentials and to keep people in their place and acts as an oppressive force. It also performs a transformative role as it enables to form a view of the world, and as a result helps to change that world accordingly. Therefore, we realize that education has an ability to control and it process in very crucial in the way of handling it.
This is what suggests that if changes are to be brought in individual and collective values, morality and legitimate conduct in societies then education can act as an starting point. This is what portrays Illich’s hidden curriculum of education.
Illich (1997) suggests that education is not only about learning various things; it teaches us the role in our society. This was explained in our class by giving an example of cleaning detergent advertisement, all which were having females as their models. This puts a sharp image on side-lines while we introduce the advertisement of detergent that washing is the duty that is to be fulfilled by females. A child watching such an advertisement therefore may also be educated into believing that these kinds of roles are always sex segregated. This gives an example of hidden curriculum, when while imparting knowledge about various things we print an image of various role that people hold in a society. Illich opposes hidden curriculum and suggests that the society should be de-schooled in an attempt to eliminate its effect.
In contrast to what we have read above is Freire’s approach to education which offers a more process oriented approach as to how education instils the hidden curriculum and how can it be resisted. This was done by a way of introduction to banking approach that reinforces the hidden curriculum and dialogical approach which challenges it.
The banking analogy in the article has been used to describe conventional approach to education in which the information is deposited into passive students who can when asked withdraw the knowledge from their in stored knowledge pit and repeat what was deposited in them (Freire, 1996, p. 52/53). Thus stating that banking education reflects a “paternalistic social action apparatus” (Freire, 1996, p. 55) where the all-knowing teacher is in control of the education process and educated an ignorant passive student who merely respond in alternation to what they have been made to learn,
In comparison the dialogic approach to education seeks to provide a context where co investigators that is the teacher and the student come together to represent and reflect upon problem situations, where the main aim is to create an iterative communication process that halts down the erect authority construction of banking education with co-investigators partaking bond for their mutual learning, developing an active relationship between students and teachers.
Another difference between the two approaches is the intended purpose of education. The banking approach is sought of conventional which objects at upholding both the hidden curriculum and the status quo. On the other hand dialogical approach works on praxis, which Freire describes as “the action and reflection of men and women upon their world in order to transform it” (Freire, 1996, p.60).
Therefore, in order to achieve the end approach od dialogical approach education should enable ‘perception of perception’ (Freire, 1972, p.9).

The Solution
In my opinion to cover up with the vast variety of problems and the remarkable rate of change in the profession, we as students must be taught to apply critical thinking and reasoning skills and to line all problems and the sought solutions with a sense of cynicism.
A student if accepts an answers without reasoning will never develop beyond the dualistic way of intellect. Critical thinking can happen only if the student identifies that an element of improbability be existent and that the likelihood of meaningful variation always exists.
Education system should let students to grasp both the strengths and weaknesses of differing opinions. This practice encompasses ascertaining the assumptions underlying each alternate and testing its legitimacy. Furthermore, the understanding of analytical processes obligatory for solving complex problems.
Implementation Suggestions 1) Utilize the case study method: This method in my opinion helps a student develop his reasoning skills while learning fundamental accounting principles. This procedure was utilized by our course of management accounting and I believe that it was very effective in making us understand the basics with application of our minds. We were able to apply our mind and forced us to understand the underlying problem. We were further able to distinguish between the relevant and irrelevant information and were able to understand the implications of each potential solution. Our lecturer proved to be a great facilitator and guided us to discover the appropriate methodology with which we could approach the problem.

2) Assign group projects: This way we as a group worked together to complete an assignment, we were obligatory to articulate to each other concepts which we had not understood primarily. Also, in an urge to arrive at a group solution we had to reach a equitably identical level of understanding midst the members and thereby, required the group as a whole to reason through several ideas and problems. This inspired us to go past the typical narration of accounting facts and principles and a deeper, much thorough consideration of the core concepts.

3) Allow students to choice of electives that will aid eradicate their insufficiencies: The very usual accounting programme, with its pre-professional prominence, gives very less occasion for electives that expands the student beyond the accounting pigeonhole. Other courses of reasoning such as MMPA 516 & 517 in my opinion are of much greater value than an extra course of advanced accounting. Perhaps programme designers must revaluate the peripheral paybacks of advanced accounting courses when equated to the boundless potential linked with revealing the students to new worlds of interests and knowledge.

4) Stress students with the significance of evolving their reasoning skills: Students need be made recognize that the orthodox accountant is confronted with a certain upper limit which confines his latent success. Students should be able to solve varied and formless problems in unfamiliar states. They must be able to understand an unfocused set of actualities; classify, and, if possible, do in advance problems; and find satisfactory answers. If the potential accountant is to breakdown his pigeonhole, both he and his instructors must be prepared to sideways many of the approaches of the outdated accounting education and dive into a novel approach of thinking.

3. ACCOUNTING & WAR
This topic was just out of the way I could think!! I had never thought that accounting could have any relationship or could have led to war.
In class when the discussion was initiated it was surprising to examine the ways in which accounting has helped to rationalize and normalize violence and how this has contributed to the acceleration and expansion of war.
It was argued in the paper as well that accounting is a form of cultural violence in that it legitimizes the exploitation inherent in a capitalist economy by reconstructing it positively as productive, necessary and normal.
Accounting has a major contribution towards making the intrinsic value of others and how this assists with rationalizing war and war-like behaviour was explored by the reading accounting for war by Michele Chwastiak & Glen Lehman.
Adam Smith provided the primary ideologues of capitalism and was deeply concerned that moral sentiments towards others could easily be forgotten in pursuit of profits.
The paper further examined specific applications of the way in which accountings indifference towards the intrinsic value of others assists with rationalizing war and war like behaviour.
Firstly, it was noted that the upkeep of capitalism requires us to believe that conserving wealth, rather than society of life, is the supreme end for the society and accounting funds this delusion by denying an object any value other than its financial contribution or detriment.
Secondly, by viewing nature as a good, accounting annuls its inherent value, leading to rampant exploitation which in turn has brought about resource wars in many forms.
Thirdly, war and accounting are parallel to one another in the fact that they render violence more workable by denying the intrinsic value of “the other” through commissioning a brutalised rhetoric and creating a distance between the perpetrator and the victim.
Fourthly, accounting contributes to justifying the disproportions, exploitation and outright denial of life created by the corporate globalization agenda through uplifting economic development over all other considerations.
Fifth, the economic sanctions follow the unimpeachable logic of accounting in that they produce brutal consequences for the enemy, which are rendered invisible, at the minimal cost for the perpetrator.
Lastly, accounting makes war appear as reasonable a business venture as health care by condensing the value of an activity to profit or loss.
If we ignore history, culture and the social world in a system of valuation then from a perspective, war and terrorism simply create new business opportunity or distract from others (Chwastiak & Young, 2003).
As Weidenbaum states, “Although the continuing struggle against international terrorism imposes significant costs on the society in general and on business in particular, it is also a source of new or expanded market opportunities for some companies” (2003, p. 10).
Capitalism has made the pursuit of wealth the supreme end for the society. In order for wealth accumulation to appear to be a reasonable end, people’s primary identities are reduced to that of consumers and the ultimate relationship is an arm’s length transaction in a market. The only human interaction captured by accounting is that of buying and selling.
Furthermore, the maintenance of capitalism requires the celebration of one of the basest human tendencies of greed. Shearer (2002) has shown how accounting contributes to the perpetuation of greed in that it constructs an accountable entity in such a way that the entity has no choice but to pursue only its own good. Greed and envy have always been seen as age old causes of discord and discontent and accounting contributes to the wrong ways of thinking by reducing all problems to economics and thus making the intrinsic worth of what is being measured. For example the value accounting does not differentiate between destructive or constructive activities, such as sale of weapons systems or the sale of wheat to a country.(Boulding, 2000; Galeano, 1998). As, Boulding(2000, p.195) points out, “Earthquakes and floods cause money to change hands. So do toxic waste, dumps, crime, divorce, and watching TV.” According to accounting, all these activities are creating value as long as they are generating a profit.
The amount of pain, fear, deprivation, hopelessness, so on and so forth suffered by the objects of analysis are not considered by the accounting equation. I other words corporate accounting deafens us to corporeal life, eradicating the empathy required for change (Jensen, 2004a)
Therefore, what we see is that in framing one set of practices as legitimate at the expense of alternatives we become ignorant of different ways of seeing the world. Other lens is deemed out of bounds, illegitimate and problematic. All this leads to a loss of understanding of alternative ways of being, we do not have the means to visualise and empathise with relationships that shape the world for others.
Nonetheless, the neo liberal world order sustained by accounting and other ideological formations not only fail to recognize the violence generated by limits to grow, it is simply perceived as an additional challenge for resource extraction. In sum, because the system of accounting we employ views nature as a resource, its intrinsic value is nullified allowing us to enter into an inequitable and exploitable relationship with the other and due to limits to growth, this exploitation is causing wars and this war with nature nurtures other wars.
Chwastiak (2001) demonstrated the integral role accounting played in normalizing the preparation for nuclear war in the 1960s through the introduction of Planning, Programming and Budgeting into the U.S. Department of Defence.
Moreover, accounting reduces people, places and things into quantities and lends itself to an abstract, cold and calculating way of reasoning. This form of reasoning imposes a clear separation between subject and object, and as such ensures that any feeling of identification with object are killed (Devall, 1988; Mies, 1990; Plumwood, 1993; Power, 1992).
Furthermore, accounting provides an objective lens through which the institutions of corporate globalization can extract the resources of underdeveloped countries without even acknowledging the death and destruction such exploitation entails. Accounting has become part of the regulatory scheme that has allowed private accumulation to take root and flourish. (Arnold & Sikka, 2001; Lehman, 2005)
It is one of the informing technologies that facilitate governance at a distance by the superannuation institutions, such as the World Bank and IMF that enforce the privatisation of essential services and elimination of safety nets. (Eurodad, 2006; Neu, Ocampo Gomez, Graham, & Heincke, 2006).
Further, because it is a form of discourse that privileges the economic over social, it constructs public goods such as education, water, etc. in such a way that their marketization is essential (Neu & Ocampo, 2007)
As, a result accounting contributes to the structural violence of corporate globalization which generates physical violence both directly and indirectly.
Further, as essential public services such as education, health care, water and sanitation are privatized; those who lack the ability to pay are, in essence, being denied the ability to live (Korten, Perlas, & Shiva, 2002). Poverty which used to be cultural and relative is becoming absolute and life threatening under the regime of corporate globalization (Shiva, 2005)
The inequities, exploitation and outright denial to life created by the global corporate agenda produce a breeding ground for more violence. Accounting contributes to the endless cycle of violence by providing a lens that masks the intrinsic value of the people’s lives that are being destroyed, allowing the perpetrators of death and destruction to rationalize their inhumanity in the name of economic growth.
Economic sanctions follow the impeccable logic of accounting by offering a low cost alternative to war. The perpetrators of economic sanctions can ostensibly pressure their opponent with minimal sacrifice and virtual impunity (Harding, 2004)
Accounting serves the mundane administrative practices that divorce the means from the end, and hence enable modern forms of genocide.
In the end I would like to say that however, accountings culpability is sustaining a permanent war economy, and hence making war a more viable option, does not end with rationalisation of wealth transfers. It does not distinguish between destructive and constructive activities. The only metric of value is profit or loss. Such instrumental reasoning makes war a potentially profitable and hence, valuable venture for corporations.

4. ACCOUNTING & GLOBAL FINANCIAL CRISIS
I believe that no one anticipated the size of the global financial crisis else it would not have affected in such a manner. But why didn’t anyone noticed it??
Often it has been seen that it is not very difficult to find predictions of a credit or debt crisis in the months and years leading up to it with the knowledge from world of academia, policy institutes, think tanks and finance industry. Then what happened this time…?
It is an event that made us to volte-face in the validity of economic models, those models that failed to foresee something this earth-shattering drastically needs transformation!
As we discussed in class and read in the reading of Arnold P.J. there is also an immediate link to accounting, organisations and society. It was found that the general equilibrium models that are extensively used in academic and central bank inquiry are prone to ‘Type II errors’ of false negatives while eradicating the probability of crisis when in reality it was on our head. Moreover, if balance sheets matter to the economy’s macro performance, than the development of micro-level accounting rules and practices are vital to understanding wider economic development. This view shows any clear dividing line between economics and accounting to be artificial, and on the contrary implies a role for an accounting of economics research field.
Till today with a few exceptions, this very point has been overlooked. The dominant response in the wake of the credit crisis in the accountants and the auditor’s community has been to re-examine accounting regulations such as ‘fair-value’ accounting (Boyer, 2007; Laux an Leuz 2009), mark-to-market accounting, lax auditing practices, and the like; or to ask how accounting models can reflect what has happened (Robert and Jones, 2009).
Arnold (2009) in his Journal examines the failure to understand the linkages between micro accounting and regulatory technologies, and the macroeconomic and political environment in which accounting operates, and to provide solutions to it. Thus, there is obvious need for such more detailed accounting research. Recognising the accounting forms in which economic relations of necessity exist, is important perhaps even indispensable for understanding the economic and financial systems sustainability, and whether there is a financial crisis looming.
Wellink (2009) quoted a 2006 IMF report on the global real estate boom asserting that there was “little evidence to suggest that the expected or likely market corrections in the period ahead would lead to crisis of systemic proportions”. On the contrary, those developments that lately were declared culprits of the crisis were lauded by policy makers, academics, and the business community.
The major reason that still asks an answer is the gap between world academic research and the accounting in action. Through all these major financial events discourse in accountants, professors and research have remained remarkably quiet. It is almost as if we believe that these events have little to do with what accountants have done, not done, and there is little role and responsibility for fixing the problems. Although we all know that the important aspects of crisis are rooted in failures of accounting theory, standards, regulators, and practice.
We first have to understand how accounting is linked to finance to critically analyse the role that accounting played in global financial crisis. Most industries have physical existence independent of accounting such as food, buildings. However, the key objects of finance such as stocks, bonds etc. are entirely defined by accounting and do not exist independent of their accounting.
On the whole, financial accounting scholars have developed in quite a different ways. In the pointless chase of objectivity they have not been clear or thoughtful about the value judgements that support their theories and research agendas. They became overly dependent on quantitative databases, and failed to develop a grasp development within the world of accounting practice or describe the ways in which financial reporting standards, accounting firms, and accounting ideologies were implicated in the build up to crisis.
Today’s dominant theories provide an insufficient base for understanding the transformations that were occurring in the international political economy over the century or for analysing the relationship between macro level changes and the micro level fielding of financial accounting practice.
These failures explain the lack of keenness and also limited ability to analyse, interpret and respond to the crisis as it continued to become apparent.
Thus these crises challenge us to re-evaluate the research agendas and also the institutional incentives and unexamined assumptions that drive them.

5. ACCOUNTING & CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
In accordance to neo classical economy ecology is beyond the economy and it doesn’t generate profits!! The wider society has been separated from the economical realm. The Externality principle is in effect, which says that anything that is relevant in economic terms is important rest are just external. Accounting also therefore ignores ecological issues and as we know that it plays a major role in the business processes this basis causes problems.
A very important ecological concept called draw-down reflects the rate at which human community uses the resources as compared to replenishing them at sustainable rate.
The major reasons for these causes which are termed as irreversible catastrophe are social inequality and environmental destruction. These are simply the consequences of the behaviour of human beings, these human being don’t care about environment just because they are acting in a manner consistent with the types of economic and social systems we live in.
To assess the role that accounting plays in facilitating this destruction is certain to an extent.
Although there has been a growing realization that it is impossible to separate economic development issues from environmental issues, many forms of development erode the environmental resources upon which they must be based and this environmental degradation can undermine economic development.
I believe that poverty is a major cause and effect of these global environmental problems. It is therefore futile to attempt to deal with environmental problems without a broader perspective that encompasses the factors underlying world poverty and international inequality.
We see that many of the present development trends leave increasing number of people poor and vulnerable while at the same time degrading the environment. It is to be thought how such a development can serve next century’s world of twice as many people relying on the same environment.
There are many reasons to this depleting environment and the major theory is that of a capitalist economy. Today’s capitalist system of economy has its main goal as profit maximization with different influential groups enforcing their own opinions. The deregulated economy further enhances the destruction of environment. These restrictions are negligible in pursuit of imperatives to grow. Moreover, we all know that developing countries are in a race to grow and hence are being exploited by the developing nations. All these is majorly a cause of infinite growth greed by humans, where they do not measure the environmental destruction in terms of money where in today’s world anything that has value or is measured in terms of gains and loss is only relevant.
Although some things till date possess intrinsic value but they have been limited to family and love. Environment is just seen as means to serve the purpose of the human needs and thus is converted to means and loses its instrumental value. If only environment is useful, make gains then only people would look after it, if its destruction is useful and made relevant, people will do that. Usefulness has become the criterion in today’s capitalist world. Everything has become a commodity. Society has lost the sense of the sacred and thus has been lost itself. No longer have any boundaries existed to classify something as a commodity and the other not. If I think about it I can realize that family is the only thing today that has not been totally commoditized. We very well know that once something becomes a commodity it is open to exploitation, there is no sense of limits today, we have commoditized everything including environment which is our base to survival.
All the environmental legislation is ignored by all the companies and they are continuously exploiting environment in realm of profit making.
If we look around all useable items such as laptops, bottles, mobile phones etc are made of metals and hence the production is not based on infinite growth. Then how do we stop all this.
Accounting is the system which Is absolutely at the center of all this, it mandates and commodifies everything. It serves techniques and calculations to businesses to commodify everything. It only recognises people, natural world if it can put a dollar value in the world. There is no conception of intrinsic value. Empathy, compassion have lost their space as instrumental value takes that place, the motive has become exploitative, everything is valued till the time it is important to us.
Accounting does not recognise anything that is outside the sphere of instrumental value; everything else is invisible by accounting and is considered waste.
Therefore accounting becomes problematic in terms of what and how it perceives things.
Gray’s paper explains that deep green philosophy realizes that everything is inter connected while on the other hand neo classical economy treats society and environment separately. It does not recognise that human existence is based on wider natural world. Deep green philosophy value for developing environmental accounts can be used to think rationally about the environment and favours corporate social reporting.
Corporate Social Reporting can help prevent the environmental degradation by making it a recognisable asset and giving an intrinsic value to it. But the scale and nature of the benefits of CSR for an organisation can vary on the nature of the company, difficulty to quantify etc.
However, it would allow a correlation between social/environmental performance and financial performance; businesses may not be looking at short run financial returns when developing their CSR strategy. The definition of CSR used within an organisation can vary but the role of CSR with a vision of business accountability to wider stakeholders, besides shareholders and investors with key concerns on environmental protection may bring in certain changes.

REFERENCES

1. Thomson, I. & Bebbington, J. (2004). It doesn’t matter what you teach? Critical Perspectives on Accounting, 15(4-5) 609-628. 2. Brown, J., & Fraser, M. (2006). Approaches and perspectives in social and environmental accounting: An overview of the conceptual landscape. Business Strategy and the environment. 3. Gray, R. (1992). Accounting and environmentalism: An exploration of the challenge of gently accounting for accountability, transparency and sustainability. Accounting, organisation and Society, 17(5), 399-425. 4. Tinker, T., Neimark, M. & Lehman, C.(1991). Falling down the hole in the middle of the road: Political Quietism in Corporate Social Reporting. Accounting, Audibility & Accountability Journal 4(2), 28-54. 5. Bryer, R. (2006). Accounting and control of the labour process. Critical Perspectives on Accounting, 17(5), 551-598. 6. Arnold, P.J. (1999). From the union hall: A labor critique of the new manufacturing and accounting regimes. Critical Perspectives on Accounting, 10(4), 399-423. 7. Chwastiak, M. (1999). Accounting and the cold war: transformation of wastes into riches. Critical Perspectives on Accounting, 10(6), 747-771. 8. Chwastiak, M. (2008). Rendering death and destruction visible: Counting the costs of war. Critical Perspectives on Accounting, 19(5), 573-590. 9. Chwastiak, M. & Lehman, G. (2008). Accounting and War. Accounting Forum, 32(4), 313-326. 10. P.J. Arnold/ Accounting, Organisation and Society 34(2009) 803-809 11. http://needlespowers.wordpress.com/2013/02/25/critical-thinking-in-the-accounting-curriculum/