CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study
There have been many attempts to experiment with accounting statements that reflect economic, social issues; however their take-up has been slow or non-existent. Outside of the Value Added Statement, the accounting profession has not supported any of these developments (Bebbington et al., 2001). Gore (2006) identified two explanatory factors to explain why accounting bodies have not initiated change in this area. First, he found that the separation of financial and management accounting bodies meant that many accounting bodies did not feel that these issues (characterized as management accounting issues) were within their mandate. Secondly, he suggested that they first had to meet the industry demand, and as such industry interest would drive the accounting profession’s interest. Social accounting for instance provides guidelines and tools to collect, analyse and monitor financial, social data (and thus guide behaviour). Although accounting as a professional field has a lengthy history dating back to at least the mid-nineteenth century (Tinker, 1985), social responsibility accounting and reporting is more recent and burgeoned during the early 1970s (Mathews, 2007).