기업의 지속가능 회계에 관한 연구

Sustainability accounting has become a term used with greater frequency at academic conferences and in corporate practice. However, review of the literature reveals a blurred picture of what is covered by this and related terms, such as sustainability management accounting and sustainability financial accounting. Virtually no definitions of sustainability accounting exist, not even in papers with the term in their titles. Also, in the context of discussions about the related notion of sustainability reporting, sustainability accounting has, in the main, not been conceptualized. At best a vague description can be found of what is expected from sustainability accounting. In most cases sustainability accounting is just used as another term for environmental accounting or environmental reporting. The results of this paper are as follows;First, given the significance of the task there is a need for diversity of research methods to be encouraged in direction of sustainability accounting, whatever the philosophical stance being taken - empirical, qualitative and research based on mixed methods. Second, conducting theoretical research that is useful to corporate managers in practice is necessary if sustainability accounting is demonstrate its fitness for purpose. Third, the linkage between sustainability accounting and sustainability reporting needs to be extended as a pragmatic imperative by moving beyond the procedural tasks designed to emphasize report preparation, information verification and disclosure and towards behavioral change within corporations, such that performance is improved. Fourth, a further pragmatic challenge for research is the need to provide a framework for and evidence about measurement and reporting which balances the need for integration of the variety in information about sustainability with the differentiated unitary information effects between the dimensions of sustainable development, at various corporate management levels and for various management functions. Fifth, researchers need to recognize that to fall short of a convincing conceptualization will leave sustainability accounting as a broad umbrella term, with little practical usefulness. Of course, the debate remains open to those with a philosophical bent, to challenge this goal and the whole edifice constructed on the promise of sustainability, its operationalization and its accountings.