Corporate accountability, community, and gas fields in Australia: Exploring the landscapes, transforming the landscapes

Marcelle Holdaway

doi:10.25907/00541

As a crucial element of corporate accountability, social and environmental accounting (SEA) has failed to yield significant results in terms of firms embracing goals other than financial profitability. Consequently, accountability by business is being tested worldwide. With stakeholder engagement being fundamental to SEA, the purpose of this research is to democratize engagement and address negative social and environmental impacts. Seeking effective social and environmental outcomes by firms through SEA, scholars with a critical orientation towards corporate accountability include a cohort of accountancy scholars who aim to better theorize SEA. They propose agonistic dialogic accounting as a possible theory, and as such a practice-base for the theory is also required. Parallels are evident between agonistic dialogic accounting, particularly dialogic informed engagements, and practice-based critical futures theory and methodology Causal Layered Analysis (CLA). This dissertation explores the potential of CLA in contributing to closing the gap between theory and practice. With CLA as the primary research method, a compelling and complimentary method was photo elicitation. Guided Visual Photo Analysis (GVPA), the software tool Leximancer, and manual colour coding were the tools applied in the analysis of the data. Research required access to multiple views on a contested industry concerning corporations and community, and the unconventional gas (UCG) industry was chosen from among numerous options. As a field study, the case study site is an Australian town; Portland, Victoria. Field work was undertaken in two stages, the first being a series of interviews, the second being a workshop. The overarching research question to be investigated was: ‘how might CLA facilitate the (agonistic) democratization of corporate-community engagement, and enable preferable social and environmental outcomes?’ Findings suggest CLA enabled several leading requirements of agonistic dialogic engagement. These include the recognition of multiple ideological orientations; effective participatory processes; attention to power relations, and steps towards transformation. Other related findings are that the methodology broadens the concept of corporate-community accountability beyond business case framings, narrow definitions, and binary thinking; deepens critical understanding by participants of their own views, and the views of others in relation to UCG, and facilitates the identification of ‘preferred futures’ and ‘uncertainties’ concerning energy needs. There were two unexpected findings. One was the exceptional power of visual research combined with CLA as applied in interviews, the other was the epistemological and disciplinary gulf between futures studies and accounting. While crossing disciplines is enriching, this ‘hybrid’ PhD proved challenging. Three key implications that feed into addressing negative social and environmental impact through democratising engagement practices were identified. Firstly, including multiple realities or viewpoints on accountability provides, 1. fresh understanding of the concept of accountability, 2. the opportunity to adopt a more collaborative approach to stakeholder engagement, 3. an expansion of the number and types of options and solutions to consider, and significantly, 4. the foundation for engaging agonistically and addressing weaknesses in SEA. Secondly, CLA group processes provide democratic platforms that support decision making processes and progress critical consciousness. Thirdly, the creation of evocative metaphors provides a vital component integral to transformation. Further, no less significant implications, are the opportunity to ‘breathe life’ into and humanize linear oriented disciplinary approaches, and, to apply narrative to nurture meaning making across disciplines. Overall, the findings imply that the combined research methodologies enabled more profound ways of knowing, leading to an althogether more holistic way of being in the world. Practical implications are that CLA, coupled with visual research methods are tools to implement a pluralist, democratic and transformative approach to stakeholder engagement. The approach could be applied when preparing and identifying material issues for sustainability reports, in implementing accountability standards, and for consideration by regulators when setting standards. Ultimately, findings suggest opportunities for creative decision making through deep-level scenario identification and strategic development as a ‘leverage point’. Should the epistemological and disciplinary gulf be bridged, these findings, in combination with the research of other SEA scholars, could lead to interventions that give rise to moving firms, and indeed civil society, closer to reaching preferable social and environmental outcomes.

Corporate accountability, community, and gas fields in Australia: Exploring the landscapes, transforming the landscapes

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