Positive Accounting Information for Sustainable Development Decision-making Using Sustainability Financial Monetising Accounting System: An Empirical Study

Abstract

Companies are faced with growing concerns and pressures from stakeholders and the public regarding their corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance and its impacts upon the environment and society in which they operate. Despite the spectacular increase in the application of different sustainable accounting systems to meet sustainability objectives, companies are still unable to provide stakeholders with satisfactory, clear and reliable monetary measures based on accounting determinates indicating their sustainability performance. This motivates the study to introduce and test the Sustainability Financial Monetising Accounting System (SFMAS) that is developed in this study to provide sustainable accounting practices with reliable, accurate and clear CSR identification and monetary measurements for organisations concerned with being sustainable and applying sustainability accounting concepts. The results of the quantitative data analyses that employ industrial and service listed companies from Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom support the development of a SFMAS conceptual model mechanism. The new mechanism is built upon free cash flow as an integrated comprehensive accounting measure from stakeholders' perspective. The SFMAS supports stakeholders' interests while developing internal management decisions and external reporting and disclosure, by employing a more accurate and reliable monetary accounting information system. By applying the SFMAS, companies could create value though economic, corporate governance, social, and environmental performance, and, therefore, would become environmentally and socially aware organisations in the eyes of stakeholders and the marketplace.