Stakeholder Theory, Accounting, and Business Legitimacy

More recently business and corporations have been strongly criticized for not always being able to conduct their commercial and operational activities in an ethical and socially responsible way. Criticisms have also involved the capability of the current accountability and control systems to provide adequate information to account for and report on these practices. In particular, accounting and accountability systems have been challenged for not serving the interest of the public, that is, to act for society’s wider interests. In the accounting/accountability literature, in particular, calls have been made for envisaging “innovative” accounting and accountability systems which act as social means for promoting society’s main interests. Such forms of accounting and accountability are conceptualized as means for activating some form of emancipatory change, in the relationships between business, society and the environment. In order words, this debate has called for the need to reconsider the “ethical” foundations of accounting and accountability systems and practices. This chapter contributes to this debate by proposing a conceptual model which could help to illuminate some of the complexities of the relationship between accounting/accountability and business ethics. This model, which is based on a “metaphorical merger” between ethical firm system theory and stakeholder management theory (Rusconi, Eur Manag Rev 1–20, 2018), is able to highlight the ethical responsibilities of the management of the firm system, the rights and duties of every stakeholder and to identify the dialectic nature between “pure” or “instrumental/strategic” ethical legitimacy. The implications of such a model for improving the process of ethical and social legitimacy of the various accounting and accountability practices are then addressed.