Professor Pawan Adhikari, Essex Business School: ‘Governance, Accountability and Public Sector Accounting’.
Professor Silvia Gaia, Essex Business School: ‘Accounting for Sustainability: Where we are and where we are heading’.
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Good evening everybody hello very good H welcome to these professorial inaugural lectures a really really lovely event I’m Chris Greer provis Chancellor research and a professor in the department of Sociology at the University of Essex and it’s wonderful to have you all here tonight when the University was founded in
1964 we committed to Excellence in both Education and Research in the 60 years since then our academics have produced work which has inspired full generations and helped establish ESS essex’s reputation for research in the UK and globally particularly in the social sciences This research ranges from pioneering work in poverty and
Inequality by Professor Peter toand to the development of the world’s first publicly available computer language by Professor Tony Brooker we continue to push the boundaries of research today from promoting human rights around the world to pioneering the use of big data in developing countries since 2013 our professorial inaugural lectures Series has showcased
Our worldclass research with more than 60 lectures aross across a wide range of topics including the laws of war inequality and mortality and being indigenous in the 21st century these lectures are a highlight of our Academic Year they give us a chance to come together and celebrate the world leading
Research Talent here at the University of Essex and I’m looking at two examplars in the front room n having both Professor Sylvia Gia and Professor Pavan adikari with us tonight means you’ll have the chance to hear from to outstanding academics from Essex Business School Essex has an incredible
Reputation in the social sciences the government’s Recent research Excellence framework placed Us in the top 10 for research quality in four social sciences subjects economics and econometrics modern languages and Linguistics politics and international studies and sociology this ranking places essics in a unique position in the UK at Global
Level Essex is 74th for social sciences and in the top 175 for business and economics according to the Times Higher Education World university rankings by subject for 2023 our social scientists including the research Community within Essex business school deliver research and insights which help us better understand the economic social and cultural factors
Underpinning social cohesion and driving social disorder from understanding the impact of surveillance technology to improving language teaching from supporting victim’s rights to enhancing peacekeeping operations the scope of our work is immense and it is always expanding across our three faculties our community of more than 800 essics researchers are change makers innovators
And free thinkers they POS bold questions tackle real world problems shape thinking and influence policy these professorial inaugural lectures are designed to inspire and perhaps challenge through the celebration of research Excellence you’ll see all the qualities of our Essex mindset demonstrated by the world class academic speaking tonight after
The lecture there’ll be an opportunity to ask questions please do and then you’ll be very welcome to join us for a drinks reception where you’ll have the chance to speak further with our professors and each other I’d now like to hand over to the executive de of the
Faculty of social sciences and professor in the department of language and Linguistics Professor Nancy goua we got NC [Applause] thank you very much Chris and welcome um everybody to this evening so as Chris says my name is Professor Nancy koua I’m executive dean of the faculty of social sciences and professor of linguistics
Here at the department of language and Linguistics it’s wonderful to have you here with us today joining us here in the Lakeside theater but also for those who are joining us online on our YouTube live stream tonight we will have the chance to hear from two outstanding academics
From the Essex business school home to the vibrant and thriving International Community focusing on five broad subject areas accounting business and management marketing finance and Banking and Entrepreneurship Essex business school undertakes theoretical and applied research to investigate key issues and contemporary challenges within businesses the public SE sector not for
Profits and The Wider World they engage in diverse areas of research such as Emerging Markets firm financing corporate governance financial econometrics and gender studies and their research agenda has an emphasis on sustainability practices corporate responsibilities and key Technologies Essex business school researchers are renowned for their expertise in accounting finance and banking
Organization studies human resource management entrepreneurship and Innovation management and marketing and the school houses seven research centers and five research groups 100% of our business and management research environment is World leading or internationally excellent and we are ranked 20th in the UK for research power in business and management according to
The Times Higher Education research power measure based on the research Excellence framework 2021 our work has real impact and here are a few examples in October this year so just last month a team of Essex business school researchers were recognized with a national innovate UK Award for best management knowledge transfer
Partnerships for their work to support the transformation of Essex based company the Finishing Line the scope of the school’s research is huge and our academics are working with national and Regional governments through to the World Bank Recent research includes investigating the impact of coid 19 on the freelance art sector exploring the
Untapped potential of fintech to promote trade between the UK and India accelerating the growth of women-led businesses and the impact of AI in the workplace you will see all of the qualities of our unique Essex research mindset demonstrated by the world-class academics speaking tonight Professor Pavan adikari and Professor Sylvia Gia
I’ll start by introducing our first Professor for tonight so our first Professor presenting this evening is Professor pan adikari pan is director of the Essex accounting Center and associate director of research and impact within Essex business school previously Professor adikari has held positions at the business school Nord
University Norway and the accounting and auditing Standards Board of the Government of Nepal where he was secretary come chief executive officer his research is within public sector accounting embedding both accounting reforms and issues connected to the engendering of public value in developing countries his research is
Widely used in policym in South Asia he is a recipient of several Awards and grants including a world Bank research award African accounting and financial Association award and the esrc uh impact fund all of which have enabled him to team up in facilitating research in areas such as citizen engagement climate budgeting and
Accountability Financial resilience and public financial management and transparency in the UK and countries in Asia and Africa if you would like to find out more about Pan’s work after this talk he has also featured in the center for public and policy engagement brighter Futures film uh series which
You can find on YouTube where he has been interviewed by Professor Jules pretty on his work on public sector accountabil and how big institution structures can be changed ladies and gentlemen welcome Professor [Applause] adikari thank you very much n and thank you everyone for coming today and also
Thank you very much for this opportunity to talk today so today actually I’m going to talk about this public sector accounting covering both develop and developing countries and this talk is basically my reflection of my experience in public sector accounting for the last two decades I started or I enter in this
Field in 2001 as a PhD student in North Norway with a very exciting topic government Accounting in Nepal tracing the past and the present so today so today’s presentation I’ll try to summarize how this field has developed and the evolving thinking and themes in the field so first I’ll start providing a
Brief overview of the public sector and public sector accounting research I’ll then talk about this change occur in public accounting basically the adaption of Enterprise accounting and how this resulted in somehow a debate between academics and accounting practi practitioners and professionals I’ll talk about some of the consequences of public sector reform
In developing countries and at the end I’ll try to uh show how how the concept has been changing or how this how new way to contextualize public sector accounting has been emerging and and how this has laid to change in the way we do our research so this is just example of
Public sector so there are certain features that characterize public sector for instance we can take the size and significance in most of Western countries almost 4 to 50% of gdps are actually based on public spending so the idea is Public Finance matter and also Public Finance is concerning because it
Was already stretched even before the pandemic and also in terms of employment if you see the the sector for instance employ almost a quarter of all jobs in the UK also in terms of Engagement because the state has to engage in activities where PIV private sectors are absent also in terms of
Complexity and the objectives for instance states are meant to promote economy efficiency and Effectiveness rather than focusing on engendering profit so these are just some of the examples showing how the enormous amount of Public Finance like how much UK government invested during pandemic it’s a 3706 billion by June
2022 and this is the scope of the public sector so means it covers central government local government public corporation there are NHS trust or and different entities so moving back to research so in 19 1980s there was a paper by by last and and and the scholar mentioned very
Few paper or research existed that time during ‘ 80s but in the last three decades we see a change a change in the sense that public sector became a distinct field for research we see a rise in the number of papers we see or witness the establishment of learn communities Association and different
Streams and the research and there was idea that okay this public sector this new public management movement had proved to be a golden age in terms of increasing number of research in public sector accounting however after long time after but postco we saw some kind of changes
In recently I’ll come back to this later in my lecture so these are some of the example for instance when we talk about public sector Accounting in the last last year or last decades we are basically talking about the change Ur and and the change was meant to move
Away from cash accounting and adaption of more Enterprise or Ur accounting and this is the projection by IAC and CA and they argue that by 2030 there will be more countries that will be practicing counting so in the last let’s say 50 60 years all these countries where we’re practicing cash
Accounting so we see the changes changes or a move towards accounting and and there are two things so one thing is first thing is there how is it the importance of public sector accounting has been recognized and second thing is that at at The Wider level the reform has been very much
Connected to improving efficiency and Effectiveness and at the macro level it is connected to improving governance accountability and also achieving development mainly in developing country context and we and of course there’s the changes means accounting there then we also see the last few years that there has been some kind of debates or
Discussion between academics and accounting practicers and accounting professionals a discussion in the sense that very often the accounting changes were propagated by accounting practice and accounting profession and we see a lot of academic work actually talking or questioning the the significance of change or they were questioning the
Adaption of public sector C in the public sector and in 2016 we we I and colleague we have undertaken one research and we tried to see how the changes are occurring in oecd countries and in that research we we try to categorize or group countries into different
Categories based on the stages of reform for instance we identify there were some countries that were that were more how you say um active in terms of implementing reforms like for instance accounting have been implemented both for reporting and and and and and Counting and there were some countries where where AC was
Used only for reporting and there were some countries they were in the they were in the process of making a transition and there were several benefits of accounting were propagated for instance it will be much easier for for government to identify full cost of their activities it will be easy for for
For users to analyze government performance their financial position and their long-term sustainability and it will be easy and overall that will help improve transparency accountability and that is very important for economic growth so that was the whole idea behind AC counting but then moving to academic or
The research of course they were many researcher were were questioning these changes for instance some re some papers were were arguing that benefits of this accounting change has often been over over stated so and when implementing reforms like many things for instance technical ambiguities or these resources required to implement changes were
Overlooked and some resources even question to what extent the ideas or values that that are derived from the private sector are applicable in in making government more efficient and effective when private sector itself was suffering but then there was the idea okay this npm is very good good in the
Sense it promoted research in different aspect of accounting budgeting reporting auditing or Performance Management but at the same time they were there were idea that it is also golden cage cage in the sense that it kind stifle for the development of public sector accounting
It is case in the sense that it it kind of weakened the interdisciplinarity of public sector accounting resource and it is case in the sense they were kind of a limited theorization and police implication of public sector accounting so that was the case in developed countries and then of course
Developing countries were not an exception the this accounting reforms were disseminate in Dev countries at the vest of international organization and these practice were term as best best accounting practices and by implementing those reform or practices efficiency Effectiveness will be restored economic growth will be accelerated and development will be
Achieved so that was the whole discourse that we disseminate in many developing countries and of course there were research that they they have tried to of course uh to understand this construction of the notion of development how the notion has been developed and they were trying to say
Okay the the notion has been developed very much adapting or embracing those values or governance values or accountability mechanisms prevailing in the waste and whether and to what extent those measures of value are applicable in the context of developing countries but overall so there was AR so there was
Some kind of argument that okay there is a capturing of development the notion of development and basically there were three three types of development discourses can be identified if we look at developing countries and each developing discour are linked with different public sector accounting Technologies for instance during 70s or
60s we see that state was seen as a key player for instance development can be achieved to the active participation or engagement of the state and then there were accounting let’s say centralized accounting planning budgeting were proposed to support that discourse during 80s they were moved toward this new public management or
Adapting Market Le development and the whole idea was okay development to to to achieve development or this Market to make Market more influential countries or states are required to to to take a transition to a accounting or performance reporting budgeting and auditing but more recently we see
Changes in the in the discourse so the idea is still this new public management is still there but the idea is at at the local level it is the this acur have been supplemented by the notion of social accountability so different sort of accounting practices or technologies have been proposed for instance
Participatory budgeting gender budgeting and the idea was accounting can be a tool for emancipation accounting can be tool for promoting equality and fairness and also in 2021 it in one of the research we we try to see how these developing countries are adapting with public sector accounting
Reform and and we argue that still this new public management still alive still dictating reforms in in developing countries and then we also find of course there are different consequences very often only intended consequences of these reforms in many developing countries for instance in some cases some countries have reversed towards
Their previous cash accounting system they started reform they tried to implement this new accounting or accounting or Enterprise accounting but they eventually move back to the previous system in some context there were partial or ceremonial adaption of reforms and in some cases we see this rise of professional this distress or
Kind escalation of debate discussion among different stakeholders and in some in extreme cases it actually reforms even created the space for the rise of the social problems like corruption patronage politics Etc because it it it were implemented or if the whole process of implementation was manipulated
And in more recent study we we we have argued that almost 70% of these reforms mainly standardization in public sector in developing countries have either failed or reach or failed to reach the confirmation stage or their confirmation has been manipulated and now this localized Le development is basically you see this
Most of International Organization now they had this element when releasing development Aid that there should be public participation so almost in the last few years the 85 billion have been spent to promote this public participation in developing countries and and and this led to the construction of kind of discourse of accounting that
Okay accounting was accounting can be deliberative tool for deliberation it can be tool for emancipa local emancipation it can be used to build local trust tendon democracy and impress but we looking at the results and practice of developing countries we basically find mixed visuals in some context of course it has helped promote
Local engagement it has helped some sort of redistribution of local resources and we also find some uh social justice has been restored but other context we see it it has probably created also space for like Pol page politics also they were we see the evidence of this Elite capture and and
They were concerned to what extent whether the government would be able to sustain this reform in the longer term and we have done some of the research in in in our like I’ve done some of the research with colleagues also SX and outside and and and we identify one of
Course there were many Factor but one of the factors that has triggered audien unintended consequen consequences is the basically the ignorance or marginalization of local actors and local context for instance in the case of Nepal we have demonstrated that all the stakeholders they are active in propagating reforms but very often the
Main key actors like government accountants were very very very much left out and we went to Africa and see they already have some some sort of local good local practices but those practices were ignored and the policy makers or or the governments were more willing to adapt this lar scale reform
So the most important thing we have ident Iden ify is very important to identify or to recognize this local context to promote local actors and to get them involved in the whole reform process but of course not everything is that bad so coming back to again so we
We see this change in public SE accounting now we see there’s a lot of papers coming out we see there are comparative study in public sector accounting between different countries we see the research are using mixed method also we see an increase in terms of theorization a lot variety of different
Theories have been used to understand public sector accounting from different aspect and we also see probably increasing partnership between academics and practitioners and profession for example one example is this development of public sector sustainability reporting where academics inputs are are highly valued by the standard setor
We see there is a Research Forum in in international public sector accounting standard board there is academic advisor committee and also the the Paya this public expenditure and finance accountability They are promoting academic research by providing funding and engaging with academics and at the same time we can
Also see now there is an increasing acceptance of the changing role and context for public sector accounting so what is happening now so so it means now with the research are kind of the very often thinking the whole debate now concerns about widening the scope of public sector accounting it means going
Beyond traditional themes and embeding this wider notion of publicness and public value the emerging attention to publicness and public value has led to the rethinking of governance and accountability mechanism it means distancing from a rational economic way and invading the specific specific values of the public sector that is fairness or equal wider
Access to Services sustainability accountability to wider spectrum of stakeholder Etc also there’s a strong engagement has been sought with contemporary development in public administration public policy and other societal issues the idea is that account public set accounting can be more gruit oriented it can be used to promote
Emancipation it can be used to empower marginalized community and to promote engagement and so the emphasis on humanizing purposes so the researcher now trying to understand how account or how public sector accounting can accounts for and how public sector accounting will impact on issues of wider social significance is like
Creating public value addressing Wicked problems facilitating co-production building on government financial Regence tackling climate change and achieving sustainable development goals and in the developing country context also we see the changes changes in the sense that the whole discourse of development imposed on these countries and the types of accounting promoted to
These countries have been questioned for instance there is an argument that development should be more as an analytical context rather than a context specific phenomenon it means when we talk about development we should talk about contemporary issues facing the society it could be climate the whole idea is how accounting can be implicated
In climate change how accounting can be implicated for promoting the Regence or how accounting can be used for promoting well-being and sustainability of humankind nature and Society so what role public sector count can play in attaining these development issues th and which require moving beyond this contextual
Boundaries so what is the way forward then the way forward of course we see that the now the researcher have have come to the same point both in Western countries and developing countries and what is it because there’s a wider con conceptualization of accounting especially how public sector
Accounting can be further develop so the whole idea it should be WID there is a need for wider conceptualization and uh for instance it requires escaping from the cage of this new public management it requires challenging development discour of international organization and it requires addressing issues affecting the
Lives and livel of people and Society also there there is a idea that public sector accounting should embrace wider perspectives relating to publicness or development because the idea is that public sector accounting develop develop over time in line with public administration or public management so it’s very important for accounting
Researcher to align their work with the work being done by researcher in in this different discipline also there is the idea that there is a need for engaging more in a strong dialogue and collaboration across discipline disciplinary boundaries and with the accounting profession practitioners and standards Traer so we see that when I
See the changes I can see this changes in the mainstream accounting during 80s or’ 70s because from the by by Invision accounting as a technology there was a change that time that accounting was seen in the wider perspective accounting was considered more as a social and institutional practice there was a
Understanding that accounting has wide implication in the life and Society of people so I can see the same kind of thinking coming up in the public sector the idea is how we can use public sector for the betterment of human human being and Society and of course we have been trying to
Extend our understanding in this area where we are I’m also involved in in the special issue trying to address some of these issue in these two special issue both in public sector accounting journal and of course sorry I don’t have this uh summary because this is still
Ongoing so the dir need continues thank you so much thank you very much pan that was really exciting I’m sure you all have many questions to ask so I’ll just say hold your fire it’s going to we’re going to have an opportunity to ask questions at
The end so allow me now to introduce our next Professor so our next professors to speak this evening is going to be Professor Sylvia Gia again from the Essex business school Professor Gia is Deputy head of the Accounting Group and director of sustainability in Essex business school she previously helped
Positions at the University of kagari in Italy and visiting scholar positions at the University of Birmingham HC Montreal and Colombia business school Sylvia’s research mainly relates to Social and environmental accounting and Reporting and corporate governance and she has published her research in highly reputed academic journals such as the accounting
Auditing and accountability Journal British accounting review Regional studies the Journal of business ethics and accounting reform Sylvia is currently the chair of the special interested interested group of the British accounting and finance Association on financial accounting and Reporting she’s an associate editor for accounting reform and journal of International Accounting auditing and
Taxation and an editorial board member of the Journal of accounting and emerging economies she has also acted as a review of several internationally recognized journals syia you’re most welcome [Applause] um thanks a lot Nancy uh sorry this is very loud on my ear but it’s going to be
Okay I will try to speak not much loud as usually do so thank you very much for being here this evening and to have found some time uh to listen to our presentations so uh what I will uh speak about this evening is about one of my uh
Research area that is about accounting for sustainability and uh um I will try to um explain what is sustainability uh and what role accounting might play on it because this might not be very obvious if you are outside the discipline and I will discuss a little bit what has been
Done in uh in this research area and what the contribution has been made and I will conclude by focusing on some of the limitations and what I believe might be uh the main opportunities for uh future res in this uh uh in this area um so sustainability is an important
Concept we had an event in EBS today where this has been discussed broadly for uh all day uh what I have put in these slides is just uh um some of the definition have been provided by the international organization to give you an idea of what sustainability means and
You can see most of this definition focus on um the role of sustainability as meeting the needs of um satis Ying the needs of the current generation and at the same time allowing the future generations to satisfy these needs and uh what is a key on the role of
Sustainability is that basically we try have to make um living together three important aspects so sustainability is based on economic growth but at the same time this economic growth should be done by um maintaining our environment rich and healthy and also allowing the society all part of the society not just
One part of the society to uh live in prosperity in in in in health way so when we think about sustainability there are basically three important Dimensions that we we need to focus on uh we need to focus on the environmental Dimension and this is uh important because the
Environment is uh from where we’re coming from and the environment is um what give us everything that we need to survive so if you don’t preserve our natural environment we are not going to have access to any of the resources that we use in our to satisfy our primary
Needs so we’re not going to have food we’re not going to have any uh material to cover ourself we’re not going to be able to brief and and so on so uh the environment is key for the um uh our society and ourself to live in the long
Term uh at the same time uh a society should uh prosper and survive in a uh equal in an equal way so in order to uh our um to be able to survive and to pass to our future generation a good environment we should pass a society
That is free from inequality a society that puts the human rights at the core of it a society that does not have all the wealth Center in the hands of the few but a society that gives everybody to as the opportunity to live in a in a
Prosperous way and of course the last but probably the diens has been considered the most in the past is the economic Dimension that we need because to to grow and probably to have a society that is more prosperous we need businesses to help us to produce the
Good and service that we need in in our life so these three dimensions should be present at the same time and we uh should uh uh develop our lifestyles in a way that we don’t put one before the other one but we just try to develop and satisfy this this pillar of uh
Sustainability so uh why is sustainability important I think I did already explain this is important because we cannot live without a prosperous environment and we need to leave in a society where everybody has access to the same opportunities what could be less unclear it is why business should care for
Sustainability why a business should think that they need to act in a sustainable way well there are several reason first because ultimate without an healthy environment uh there will be no raw materials so business cannot produce anything uh at the same time without a healthy and prosperous Society there
Will be no people that are going to use these service and products so ultimately without uh an healthy environment and Society business cannot exist at the same time business can also find Opportunities from sustainability because our Uh current lifestyle is putting a little bit we are thinking of putting a bit more
Sustainability at the core of it uh customers are becoming more attentive of the type of uh uh products they buy and therefore they consider sustainability and if a business sustainable or not in making their uh purchasing decision at the same time uh investors care about sustainability they do consider if
Companies are acting in a way that they satisfy the needs of the environment and the society and therefore uh business that need to attract money from the investors they need to uh focus on sustainability at the same time uh sustainability can help also to reduce cost uh save energy reducing waste uh
Can help to uh save cost from an accounting perspective but also there are new opportunities that nowadays uh are becoming uh um more diffus in terms of uh sustainability and just today we had an event in the business school talking about how sustainable is important in education and that’s again
It’s a new business opportunity that is starting because of the need to become more sustainable the need to teach more how to be sustainable and how sustainability can use in our business degree um so after having given this background what is the role of accounting so why in accounting we should start
Sustainability uh if you think about accounting traditionally we have seen accounting as this meth method process to measure analyze and Report the value creation of a company so we use accounting to measure Financial value we use accounting to measure how much uh economic value the company owns how much
Economic value the compan is using how much economic value the compan is producing and the same thing for other organizations we can do the same in relationship to sustainability issues because in the same way we can measure Financial Resources we can also measure uh the social aspect and the social
Impact that a companies make and the same way we can measure analyze and communicate the environmental impact that the company is uh uh is making and that’s why in 20 30 years ago or even more we started developing this discip that is called accounting for sustainability so what uh do we know
Currently about accounting for sustainability so uh we can identify I think uh two main uh two main streams and these are the environmental accounting side and the social accounting part and within this stream there are uh some main tees that have been study the most so um sorry I we
Just get some water so the the field that have been studied the most is currently uh what is called carbon accounting and climate change and um this is one of the um field that I could consider to be the most developed and this is U for a simple reason that
Politically there has been a lot of focus from the end of the 80s the 90s and the 2000 to the importance of climate changes uh since probably the last the last couple of years so the studies on um climate uh change and carbon accounting are pretty much developed also
Because uh countries have started putting some regulation in order to reduce uh CO2 emissions and these has create a sort of trade model that allow company to put economic value on carbon emissions and therefore these originate the need to study how to evaluate these uh uh the these these these assets and
So several studies start thinking how we can evaluate this right to uh produce more emission or how do to evaluate uh the liability that we have when we have uh produced too much emissions and this lead to several studies that have created a so-called accounting for carbon assets accounting for for
Liabilities but also study focus on on how to measure the emissions the company produced because there could be direct emissions there could be indirect emiss misss and this has been challenging and try to understand how this can be uh can be done um other type of studies and um
Most of these studies has also focused on the aspect of reporting and uh um have investigate how companies report climate changes information and uh um on the Assurance of this report because some companies uh have um uh audit companies that uh review this report and provide an evaluation in order to
Basically certify to the market that the information provided there is reliable and we have studied done of this and also we have studyed that to investigate what are the um impacts on the Capital Market on the stock market and changes from uh companies that issue uh more or
Less carbon emission but also company that produce um reports about their process and practices in relations to this um the other um areas are less developed that uh the carbon accounting and uh uh the next one is actually the the research area where I put most of my
Research interest in uh in uh uh in accounting and is biodiversity accounting uh biodiversity is a concept that I’m not sure if everybody is familiar but in the past in then I think in um in the beginning of these century I think there was a study that showed
That only 10% of the population was aware of what biodiversity was of course now there is more talk about biodiversity so we are more aware that it represents the variety of life that exist in the world and that it is important to account for it because
Without this variety of life we might uh not be able to survive in the future and therefore more Focus has been put in in in the recent to this uh to to this field however despite this um there have been not the same political attention that have been on on climate change
Therefore also the information that researchers could find and to say this topping has been has been more limited in comparison to uh to climate change so the studies in this area is focused on try to develop conceptual Frameworks on how to measure biodiversity and again not a clear
Agreement as we found on the best way to measure biodiversity because there are some Focus that are more a focus on the economic impact and the measure biodiversity in term of economic impact another way of measuring that is more focused on the environmental the environmental side uh most of the
Studies have focused on the reporting uh part and several studies also try to understand what accounting practice company have put in place to measure to to evaluate and to protect uh biodiversity uh another important research area is Water Management uh of first on now companies measure analyze
And Report their usage of of of water and in term of focus this has been pretty much similar to biodiversity so the focus is still on conceptual how to measure water usage and how to disaggregate his water usage in more meaningful information and and Water Management reporting uh another very important area
Still on the environmental side it’s a very new one despite being very new is probably in a more developed stage and is accounting for the circular economy uh where by circular economy we mean uh a model of production and consumption that um try to um enhance the uh life
Cycle of a product and basically uh is focused on um reusing by sharing leing repairing refurbishing materials in order that we reduce waste and we are become more efficient in our in our usage so uh this area has focused to understand what is the role that accounting can play uh
In relation to Circular economy but because is easy to some way to measure there are more side of focus on more measurement on this part because we can measure the effectiveness of the model by seeing how much energy saving has been um by U measuring mean the usage of
The material used so it’s uh uh it’s easy to apply while for biodiversity there is still need to more conceptualization to understand how to measure the phenomena uh and of course by uh circular economy and important aspects in accounting have been on the cash flow of the circle economies
Because the idea is that Circle economies might help company to reduce their uh their cost and again as for the other reporting is definitely one of the area that has been again and studied uh studied the most uh moving on on the the social the social aspects uh uh overall
Social aspects have been studied a bit less than environmental aspects and this the study uh focus in some case on diversity and inclusions uh where um diversity inclusion refer to the practice of being supportive to the different group of individuals and studies in Accounting in this area have
Focused mostly on uh one aspect that is the gender diversity uh mostly at board level and this could be probably because the access of information uh there are studies that focus on other type of diversities but these studies are more limited in number uh and uh uh those
Studies uh mostly focus on social on gender diversity and also um try to investigate what effects having a more diverse um employee uh employee population more diverse board can produce in term of Financial and non Financial um aspects um uh the last U area that uh has been widely uh studied
Is the uh about uh human rights and again it is focused on the accounting practice in place for company to promote the respect of Human Rights and Better Label conditions and then main areas that have been study are mostly uh aspect of discrimination uh the corporate practice
Adopt by companies and uh uh mod slavery um compared to the Environmental Studies uh these Studies have been mostly conceptual and focusing more on the accounting managerial practices in places again probably related to the challenges that exist in uh measuring these uh uh these aspect and and and and
For company also to to report on the measurement of these of these aspect so uh overall what overall are the main findings of uh uh the broad research on uh sustainability in accounting so uh the measurement of environmental and corporate um environmental social impacts is find to be challenging uh is
Challenging particularly for social aspect and for biodiversity because there is still not a clear understanding on how this this should be measured and therefore we have limited evidence on this aspect except for um for the carbon accounting uh studies on environmental accounting is mostly focused on reporting uh very
Uh and these studies on reporting has mostly focused on communication strategies plans and actions and uh the evidence uh um shows that uh actually company tend to provide very limited meaningful disclosures on these aspects and they actually try to do some sort of green green washing or for um managing
The impression of the uh user of this information by Port trying to portraying a better pictures of uh what should be warranted according to what the companies are um are doing uh in term of social accounting uh the uh studies uh provide evidence on some of the process adopted to manage these accounting
Proces but the research is more in in an early stage of development than uh considering the uh the other studies um so uh What uh I think are the limitations and what I think uh future research can go in this uh in this area um I believe there is need of more
Studies that go beyond reporting more studies that try to um uh develop some way of measuring social impacts and measuring environmental impacts like biodiversity uh probably there is a need in in this discipline to move forward and a bit away from climate change itself but needs also to focus on other
Social environmental aspects uh considering what is the impact of uh business for local communities so we know very little about this uh what is the impact in term of Waste Management again we know something from the circular economy um field but there is not really much done
On this uh on this part uh we probably need also to try to focus and move away from large organization but also focus on public sector organization as pan was also talking about this uh NGO more Med medium Enterprises and um I think I left as
Last the two that I believe are the biggest limitations uh the first one I think is related to the fact that so far organization have been studied mostly at individual level uh the focus is mostly on what is the impact of this company uh what these companies do and then we try
Probably to generalize some of the results or we focus on some uh practice that this company have uh have adopted however there is probably need to try to investigate more the collective role of Corporation try to focus more a collective way what organization are doing what companies are doing what
Public sectors is doing what NGS are doing so try to get more a systematic way way and also try to involve more the individuals in all these pictures because individuals has also a big role to play in in sustainability and the biggest limitation I think is of the current
Research is that we tend to focus either on social or either in environmental accounting we very rarely see studies that focus on the two dimensions and very rarely we see studies that try to understand how the social Dimension impact the environmental dimensions and the other and the other way around so
Most of the research as AER so as a investigated the environmental aspect and the economic implication of and how the economic aspect affect the Environmental way around they focus on uh the relationship between business and the social impact or they focus on how the economic aspect affect the social environmental and the
Other way around what we’re missing is studying how the social dimensions and the environmental Dimensions affect each other and this is something that despite the importance that uh we have um the sdgs the United Nations social goals have now is still missing in the accounting literature and this is key because to have
Sustainability we need a three dimension so to have sustainability we need to analyze the relationship of all these three aspects so basically we are now missing one part of this puzzle and without this this bit this missing we cannot really understand how sustainability is going um particularly
Because uh also the pandemic is show us that social environmental Dimension don’t go exactly in the same in the same direction um so uh to conclude I think I just want to discuss more than limit than limitation I think this is an opportunity for future research because
We now uh have some new accounting standards that are going to uh become implemented from the financial year starting next year on The 1 of of January and we have two set of Standards the European sustainability standard that are going to be mandatory in the European Union and then the
International stability standard issued by the uh International Accounting standard boards which be mandated mandated in different other uh jurisdictions so this standards will probably can provide academics with some information that we missing uh uh that were missing before but also provide opportunity for future research in order to try to investigate and understanding
How this use of standards can affect and can uh uh hopefully help to achieve a better uh sustainability uh thank you so much and I’m really looking forward for your question thanks a [Applause] lot I will take this with me thank you very much that was really
Very very exciting I’m sure everyone is really uh to ask uh to ask any questions so we’d like to hear from you the audience if you’ve got any questions you like to ask after those really yeah inspiring um talks hi thank you very much for both of you very interesting presentations I
Have a question for Professor G and I’ll just like to pick your bra a little bit about the new standards sort of coming into play next year so there’s a debate around how these standards are of um still taking the business case so companies now you know the standards
Will provide an opportunity for them to give more information but also they are al they are still coming from The View that give information as long as it affects money you’re making right so I just wanted to get your opinion around that um is it really enhancing transparency in terms of how
Companies are behaving how more sustainable they are or is it just more tell your stakeholders or sorry the shareholders more of the risk that you face in terms of sustainability to the money you have invested so what what are your thoughts around that thank you thanks a lot abdulai that’s a great
Question so I’m sure I have a great answer for that so I’ll try my best um so first of all I think there is a difference between the two set of Standards I think the um uh issb standards they have more focus on uh investors so these standards will adopt
A concept of single materiality uh where basically the focus is going to be on report the environmental and social issues that can may have a financial impact um while the uh European uh reporting standards they will focus on double materiality and in that case I would expect that the impact should be
Reported uh beyond the financial aspect so I would expect that this standard should provide some information that can help uh stakeholders not just investors to evaluate more the impacts that the company is is making um I think to answer your question I think we might have to wait to see until the standards
Are implemented um because uh they the standard of biodiversity is for instance very very much detailed and my concern is that I’m not sure companies will be able to collect all this information because it’s still a learning process and we expect uh the might take a little bit
Before we achieve a sort of meaningful information uh from that point of view and I I would say probably the one on climate changes and pollution those might be a bit easier of implementation but the one on Water Management biodiversity and the other social aspect like local communities these I think he
Might take a bit more time to see our companies are are doing good another one over there yeah thank you very much and I think the uh presentations were quite uh very enriching and sorry I’m direct my question to Professor again on the issue of double materiality you mentioned I’m
A bit weary about that even though the EU tends to take that kind of approach whereby organizations not only report on how they impact Society or the environment but now how society and environment impact their activities so I’m thinking that organization may want to leverage on that and probably
Emphasize more of how societal environment is affecting them rather than how they impacting the uh environment and Society so I don’t know whether uh what your reflection around that notion um okay well in in a way I think we have to think in a sort of risk and opportunities so if you
Go and invest in a company or you are Act engaging with a company you want to understand how the business is impacting the environment and the society but at the same time is important to understand how the environment and the society is impacting the business because in this
Can also produce risk for the companies in not to be able to operate again and opportunity for the company so this this kind of way should be able to provide a full picture in one way you see what the societ what the company is doing to the
Environment and then you can trace their impact but the same now you can see how the way the society and the environment is evolving is also impacting the the business and this is very important in order to evaluate the viability of the business so I would think that this kind
Of way of reporting should provide stakeholders and investors a kind of better pictures to evaluate a company maybe not comprehensive but I think he’s should be a way forward there’s another question yeah up there is it me yeah go ahead um question for pal um I well I have some relevance
To S to but I thought uh Professor B in terms of your interesting thought about the involvement of academics and practitioners uh you’ve mentioned how academics have become more involved in public sector accounting standards and committees and I think you mentioned that somewhere um I think the the
Question is it’s quite for audience non accounting audience it’s quite rare to generally in private sector accounting CICS been kept away generally speaking from from this and so in this case there is at least perceived more involvement of of academics so I think the question
Is how do you think this is going to possibly pan out in the future do you think academics will be able to have a real influence or do you think we’ve been invited in but just from a sort of slightly just to for legitimacy point of
View um do you see where perhaps this is really happening really real change Could Happen uh in terms of rather than being outside than rather being inside yeah thank you too yeah I think my view is of course now there’s a more there’s a more forum where like like
Even like AFA or bafa you can justar or irspm they they they invite both practice Nur and the for dialogue so I think it’s more understanding between academics and practitioners and Professionals in recent year compared to to many years ago so in a sense I think probably practice practicers probably
Also understand the importance of acting research basically evidence and and the fact we we provide to them so I think it will probably develop there there I can see continuous engagement for instance like inar or irspm they are probably engaging more and more compared to last
Few years so I think it will probably be better compared to last last few years there was no engagement and we we we wrote papers about this practitioners academic Division and or the gap between accounting practice and accounting research of course still long way to go but mind understanding is it is improved
Moving another there’s one up there and then one down here thank you yeah should should be on perfect uh thank you very much so my my question is for Professor pin as well uh it was a very interesting discussion about public sector accounting and there was some
Very interesting links that you made um going as far back as causality and you talk about things like um corruption and all these Concepts that can impact uh public sector accountancy standards and then you also talk about H the sort of impact can have on a number of social
Values such as emancipation such as transparency fairness so the question then is how exactly do you plan or what what are you what what are your views on how this can be best Quantified what sort of quantitative research can actually be done along these lines by looking into the links between uh public
Sector accounting and the societal values yeah about the research uh now we see this more and more engage about this kind of C engagement like social engagement and and we see this you know this research how how this the all idea of the corruption and emancipation tool
So the whole idea is that there should be engagement of society or there should be engagement of people in policym in budgeting or there a Al concept of co-production so so you see this’s a trend in R of course is starting recently but you can see the research is
Is moving towards that direction because for instance many scholar they they talk about let’s say after pandemic and the government seems to be insufficient to provide service or deliver service to uh to Wi the people so there should be a concept of co-production and and and
They talk about like this we see the this bankruptcy of Cel in in the UK so so they talk about this how to develop finan Regence so I think probably the research going to that level before uh like I mentioned in last 10 years 20 years the researcher were just talking
About the accounting change financial reporting change how how to improve how to value assets or how to Value liabilities how to present a government financial statement but that thing is of course still important but there is a move kind of wider conceptualization of public Che accounting so I think that is
My understanding I don’t know whether I answer your question or not thank you yeah there was one in front here thank you Prof and profor I have for wonderful presentations we really enjoyed it profar I have a question because you have mentioned about the importance of emerging importance of
Public sector accounting during the last few decades in many parts of the world and particularly considering the fact that your focus of research is on emerging economies and also you have cited the role of CO as a titing point in terms of bringing more attention to the public sector
Accounting but what we have seen now is now means in the recent months is actually the countries are actually going back from the importance given to the public sector at that time of the year and also the deficit financing is becoming much more an attractive option of budgeting in many of the emerging
Economies so are we going back now or this kind of emerging importance of accounting is is somewh diluted by the pressures of political economy uh if so that’s that’s my question to you and Professor g i I think it’s a fascinating to note about uh your research on
Sustainability but having said that you may remember we had a presentation uh from an external researcher from somewhere LSC or something in the department a couple of years back and he was talking about this bombolian concept of profit ability of business and which actually still predominates our corporate business sector so in that
Type of a context to what extent the businesses will W into the concepts of sustainability without passing the cost to the consumers because if they are not ready to compromise on their profit or if it is an as an added element to their profit then finally the cost will be for
On the shoulders of the consumers and then how far that is acceptable both the questions have a political economy Dimension sorry about thank you thanks go first I can go first um that’s that is a very challenging question um the way I see it is going to take time
Uh but I think there is a need of a change in mentality um and because I didn’t grow up with a sustainability in a sustainability area where there was not talk about sustainability when I was a kid and you but if you grw up and you’ve been taught
In school and you are educated in a way that sustainability is important then I think what you are talking about it could be bypassed because then it is it it should become a sort of value and sort of thing that all of us should have
In our mind and then it should be a sort of way we should behave and I don’t say that it’s going to change completely but if we start talking more about sustainability we educate uh everybody in uh in in different countries in different place about the importance of
Acting in this way uh this probably you going to be in a situation where all the consumers will have this into their mind and so business might have to be f fored in acting in that way so in my view awareness and education it is key to
Change this kind of behavior it’s not going to happen in one day it’s not going to happen in one year but it’s going to take time to to be processed but I think if we focus on education of these aspects that we might get close to uh some good
Change yeah thank you thank you of course the going back about government of course the governments are probably more cautious now so we see even in oecd they they focus more on how to Value assets that there the whole statement report of asset valuation or Capital account because they are cautious about
The impact of coid and and also you see the death and deficit already let’s say public sector spending 40 50% and that has increased and and there’s a concern about the long-term sustainability of the government but at the same time my understanding is there is a understanding okay there is now
Probably need for more fory co- production because many services can be delivered by engaging citizens and that will have cost implication cost reduction for citizen engagement they they may come and that may help some kind of follow development kind of voluntarily so I think there is a kind
Of a mix of course it’s it’s going back in the sense in terms of budget cutter or or resarch constraint but but it seems to be more open for other approaches that will enhance public service delivery so as a way of sort of coming a little bit to the conclusion um you you
Some of the stuff that you talked about a lot was about us all being social beings and we in a social context and so it would be I just want you to reflect a little bit on your careers just very briefly if you can tell us a little bit
You know who is Sylvia who is Pavan how did you come to be interested in these subjects it’s really interesting to see you talking about them with a lot of passion and all of this knowledge that you accumulated how did you come to things this is the thing for
Me you want to go first um sustainability I would say uh in accounting I think I did start it from corporate governance so I do still do corporate governance and sustainability and I think I always uh have been passionate of something um that I could see some more
Tangible aspects rather than the more crude and cold and numbers in the financial statements in accounting I think the corporate governance and sustainability aspect would bring lights to something that I think um is more valuable for me so um and I think the passion for sustainability is just if
You see me walking around I will tell everybody to not throw a cigarettes on the floor because I get very upset and shaza knows about that so it is something that um I really believe that um environmental sustainability is very important and at the same time I strongly believe social sustainability
Is key because this Society is still too diverse to different and in several way we Face a lot of difficulties in several aspects and I think studying these aspects and would help to make S sort of contribution of something that I believe it’s uh it’s important so I think that’s
How I get into that part excellent exciting yeah I think for me it’s interesting to kind reconceptualize the whole the whole this understanding of public counting because it let’s say we talk about let’s say 40 50% of GDP government spending and and that sector has always been marginalized and people
Think of one company one firm but they don’t think about their life because everything welfare or Life as a pension or healthare all depends on to what extent government would be able to to support us or not in the future so I think it’s the whole concept accounting
Can be challenged the way they present financial information the focus on thisal asset valuation liabilities of course those thing are important but that won’t cover this human aspect or my my probably future direction would be to to to kind of questioning the government involvement the way they present or the
Way they the way they try to make them accountable and try to extend this concept of account accountability so so the people Society will be benefited thank you very much I mean that’s a real true Testament to the SX Business School uh being concerned not only about the subject themselves but
About making an impact in the world thank you very [Applause] much I just want to make a plug for our next uh Professor inaugural lectures which are going to be in two weeks on Tuesday 28th November from The Faculty of science and health we’re going to have professors from our school of Life
Sciences and from the school of sport Rehabilitation and exercise Sciences so if you want to hear something in those areas as well please come along so thank you very much for coming tonight it was a real pleasure we want to invite you especially to come along to our uh
Siland Student Center and have a few drinks and talk informally um to our wonderful professors thank you very much and congratulations how’s St very good excent no it was really good good yeah yes it’s true yeah yeah yeah yeah mixed yeah yeah yeah no no no it’s
Always no but I think it was a good pitch and also there are all such topical things and then I’m sure there’s of course everyone knows something deeper behind it yes congratulations to her oh thank you very much