Discussant comments on CPA 189 “Ecological Motivation and the Role of Environmental
Accounting: a study” by Kerry Jacobs
Summary
In this paper the authors present a study of what they call ‘the discourse of ecological modernization and its implications from environmental accounting perspective in terms of corporate social responsibility reporting’ which is explored through a case study of Dongfeng
Motor Company in China.
Donfeng was established in 2003 and is a joint venture between a Chinese government State owned enterprise and Nissan, which produces Nissan passenger vehicles and locally branded passenger and commercial vehicles. Although it is headquartered in Wuhan it is expanding physical locations to Dalian and the volume of vehicles being produced.
Ying Deng motivates her paper through a general concern within the accounting literature around the changing face of environmentalism and its application to accounting which has resulted in environmental issues being treated as business opportunities rather than operational problems. However, the paper is also motivated (at least in part) by the growing concerns within Chinese public over the ‘huge political risks’ associated with pollution.
Ying Deng theorizes her paper with notions of ecological risks derived from the work of Mol and Sonnenfield (2000) [missing from references]. The essential argument seems to be that raising social and economic activities have brought harm to the environment and [therefore there is a need] to explore how government policies deal with environmental consequences through their discursive practices.
Ying recognizes that there is a debate within the accounting literature around environmental reporting but to focus primarily on the literature which has attempted to draw an association between firm characteristics and environmental reporting.
Ying has examined the 2009 to 2012 Dongfeng Motor corporate social responsibility reports.
The research questions investigated were:
1.
What is the development of corporate social responsibility reporting of Dongfeng
Motor Corporation from 2009 – 2012
2.
Has Dongfeng Motor Corporation’s reporting comply with the guidelines developed by Chinese Academy of Social Science ？
The methodological approach was content analysis following the methods of Jekins and
Yakovlea (2012).
Ying suggests

That the reporting practice of Dongfeng Motors met both the Global Reporting
Initiative and the CSSS-CSR reporting benchmark of the Chinese Academy of Social
Sciences.


That there is a positive development in corporate social reporting over this period and
Dongfeng Motors (a) Increased the volume of reporting (b) disclosed more information and (c) achieved more indicators since 2010.
Ying suggests that this evidence
‘proves the assumptions made by ecological modernization and shows that ecological modernization is applicable [along with] the environmental accounting practice’.
Ying concludes that while environmental harm has raised the interest in environmental reporting in China – these issues have been recognised in accordance with CSR frameworks such as GRI and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. However, because improved reporting may not be effective ‘as to the raised concern over the environment’ endogenous factors relating to the effectiveness of environmental accounting may be requested to the quality of recognised indicators or the quality of standards or regulations involved.
Comment
I remember over 15 years ago hearing Peter Armstrong declaring at a workshop in
Manchester that “ if he saw another social and environmental context analysis he would tophimself”. While I am sure we are all very glad that Peter has not fulfilled his threat – perhaps if it was more widely publicised we would be prevented the pain of endless content analysis.
Surely we can do better!
I can see a real value and timeliness to focusing on economic (particularly manufacturing) activities in China and commend Ying for initiating this work. However, this paper needs to communicate more clearly with an academic and/or a policy audience.
My first challenge is to identify an academic motivation for this paper. The existing accounting motivation is vague and insufficient to address an academic readership (which I presume is the primary target – given it is being presented here). I would suggest that more work needs to be done in engaging with existing environmental (and other) accounting literature. In short what am I being told that is new? Just saying “the Chinese case it new” is insufficient unless you intend to target it to a Chinese journal.
You might want to think in more detail about the interesting and challenging contextual issues. There is a theme about the progressive relocation of manufacturing to China. Even authors such as Lenin (1917) and Said (2003) might suggest that this relocation (and the associated environmental damage) is actually a form of imperialism – economic imperialism.
The two other interesting factors are the SOE / Government ownership and the existence of an external partner in the form of Nissan. However, these themes are not acknowledged or explored within the paper.
I would move the literature discussion before the theory – how do you propose a theorisation of a problem – before you have actually outlined that problem (or at least the problem for your academic readership)?
Currently the ecological modernization theorisation is confusing and it is unclear how it helps me understand a problem in the accounting literature. Actually it seems to be a theorisation

of a problem for China. If you go down this path you are orientating your work to Chinese studies rather than accounting journals. The research questions presented further reinforce this perception and make this paper look more like consultancy rather than research. Your research questions need to arise from an issue in your literature – which is the field of the audience you wish to engage with.
There is also little justification of why a content analysis approach will provide evidence to argue for or against your theorised proposition and the conclusions you draw on the basis of the evidence presented are far from convincing. As a consequence the conclusion drifts off and is quite vague. You should derive a more robust reference for a method rather than a paper from Journal of Cleaner Production .
Even if this evidence was more convincing it is hard to see how or why improvements in government mandated reporting should, of themselves, improve the state of the Chinese environment or assist the political challenges faced by the Chinese leadership in walking a difficult path between economic growth, international engagement and environmental protection. Given the rich literature tradition in this area it is easy to dismiss any improved reporting practices observed as legitimacy devices and the processes as social and institutional power struggles.
I would strongly encourage you to go beyond general content analysis and instead engage with the practices within Dongfeng Motors, particularly around how accounting is mobilised in struggles between the external partner (Nissan) and the Chinese government stakeholders and to more clearly articulate how this case informs our understanding of the practice of accounting.
References
Lenin, V.I. (1916) Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, Progress Publisher, Moscow
Said, E. (1993), Culture and Imperialism, Vintage Books, London.
Jenkins, H. and Yakovleva, N. 2006, “Corporate social responsibility in the mining industry:
Exploring trends in social and environmental disclosure’,
Journal of Cleaner
Production , vol.14, pp.271-284