Corporate Social Responsibility and the Teaching of Management Accounting

Throughout most of the 20th century Management Accounting was developed on the premise that it should help managers to decide how best to maximise the short-term financial profits of their businesses. In the emergent Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) business environment Post, Preston and Sachs(1) ask, 'To whom and for what is the corporation responsible?'. In response to this question we examine publications describing recent changes in the corporate environment, and provide evidence of business decisions being made on the bases of: environmental, societal and other criteria, besides those relating to financial profitability. We question whether such changes in the corporate environment are being reflected in the way that Management Accounting is being taught in business schools today. We provide details of a final year course that we have developed at our university.