A socio‐economic paradigm for analysing managers′ accounting choice behaviour

The lack of explicit consideration in positive accounting studies of managers and their social environment leads to a failure to analyse the social factors that influence managers′ accounting choices. Argues that based on a socio‐economic paradigm, consideration should be given to a socio‐economic consideration of the relationship between corporate social reporting and managers′ selection of accounting practices. Criticizes a purely economic approach to understanding and analysing motives managers may have in choosing accounting policy. Social responsibility reporting is suggested as a corporate social response to influences on managers and their choice of accounting policy. In analysing prior research which has empirically tested the relationship between social responsibility reporting and reported financial performance, a potential relationship between reported financial performance and accounting policy choice is identified and developed. This contributes to socio‐economic research by expanding positive accounting theory to include explicit social variables.