Emancipatory Accounting in China: Does Alternative Social
Reporting of Non-governmental Organisations Address
Corporate Social Responsibility Problems?
Dan SHEN1
Essex Business School, University of Essex, UK
Abstract: Although ever more corporations choose to publish Corporate Social
Responsibility (CSR) reports to proclaim their social responsibilities, corporations’
CSR reporting and disclosures are widely considered as a tool of public relations
rather than solutions to CSR problems. This paper focuses on the potential
transformative nature of accounting to discuss whether alternative social reporting
published by Non-governmental Organisations (NGOs), as a form of emancipatory
accounting, can be used as an effective measure to address CSR problems.
Within the socio-political, economic and cultural context of China, the paper
evaluates the theoretical possibility of emancipatory accounting for coping with CSR
problems based on the Neo-Marxism thoughts, and discussed the importance of
NGOs’ engagement in implementing emancipatory accounting. On the basis of
theoretical evaluation, this study appraises roles of NGOs’ social reporting in China’s
CSR development from empirical evidences, through comparing differences of CSR
disclosures between corporations’ reports and NGOs’ independent investigation
reports in terms of significant CSR scandals, as well as examining corporations’
reactions to NGOs’ reports.
Pursuing a critical perspective sensitive to the context of China, this paper contributes
to verify the possibility of emancipatory accounting in dealing with CSR problems
and examine the roles of NGOs in effecting the transformative changes in China. The
paper concludes that NGOs’ activities seem to be the only legitimate way to influence
accounting mobilization in China due to a variety of restrictions from the state and
corporations, and their social reporting is a feasible attempt to promote CSR
development.
Keywords: Emancipatory Accounting, Social Reporting, Corporate
Responsibility (CSR), Non-governmental Organisation (NGO), China
1
PhD student in Accounting, email: dshena@essex.ac.uk.
Social