Accounting for Social Value offers academics, accountants, policy-developers, and members of non-profit, co-operative, and for-profit organizations tools and insights to explore the connections between economic, social, and environmental dimensions.

When organizations use social accounting practices, they are able to measure their performance in terms of benefits accrued to key stakeholders such as their communities, human resources, and those investing in the organization. This innovative change in accounting can lead to a fundamentally different perspective on the value of an organization. Through case studies of organizations that have implemented social accounting in the United States, Canada, India, and Scotland, Accounting for Social Value provides a unique perspective for understanding key issues in this growing field. Building on two related titles, Researching the Social Economy (2010) and Businesses with a Difference (2012), Accounting for Social Value offers academics, accountants, policy-developers, and members of non-profit, co-operative, and for-profit organizations tools and insights to explore the connections between economic, social, and environmental dimensions. The lessons learned are valuable not only for other social economy organizations, but also for organizations in the public and for-profit sectors.

This book deals with the limitations of economic and financial accounting as an appropriate instrument to reflect the real value created or destroyed by an organization. The authors present a sustainable social accounting approach that considers both the social and economic value – Blended Value – generated by an organization for all of its stakeholders. This approach is based on four major theories – Stakeholder Theory, Action Research, Phenomenological Perspective and Fuzzy Logic – and was developed on the basis of a cost-benefit analysis.

How do nonprofit organizations add value to communities? How can they create social capital out of the money invested in them? Can nonprofits and cooperatives measure their social performance and make their business case? How can nonprofits measure their outputs with more accuracy? This book answers these questions and more.

The social economy sector (SES) faces pressures for greater accountability to their funders, users, and citizens, and a growing need to report good practices in the social, economic, and financial impact that they have on the community. However, these entities often face difficulties related to the lack of an accounting framework that allows them to properly disseminate the results of their activities. Thus, practices that involve financial reporting and an assessment of their social, economic, and financial impact are needed to improve their accountability, sustainability, and operational performance. Modernization and Accountability in the Social Economy Sector is an essential reference source that discusses future avenues of development for the management of SES entities, accounting, control in SES management, and measures of performance in the SES. Featuring research on topics such as online communication, social accounting, and value reporting, this book is ideal for managers, financial consultants, academicians, researchers, and students interested in accounting, management, internal control, auditing, and technology use in the SES.

This volume brings together researchers from a range of disciplines including accounting, political science, management, sociology and policy studies to discuss and develop our knowledge and theory of the nature of ‘accountability’ in contemporary global society and the challenges it may pose for public policy and management.

Accounting for Value teaches investors and analysts how to handle accounting in evaluating equity investments. The book's novel approach shows that valuation and accounting are much the same: valuation is actually a matter of accounting for value. Laying aside many of the tools of modern finance the cost-of-capital, the CAPM, and discounted cash flow analysis Stephen Penman returns to the common-sense principles that have long guided fundamental investing: price is what you pay but value is what you get; the risk in investing is the risk of paying too much; anchor on what you know rather than speculation; and beware of paying too much for speculative growth. Penman puts these ideas in touch with the quantification supplied by accounting, producing practical tools for the intelligent investor. Accounting for value provides protection from paying too much for a stock and clues the investor in to the likely return from buying growth. Strikingly, the analysis finesses the need to calculate a "cost-of-capital," which often frustrates the application of modern valuation techniques. Accounting for value recasts "value" versus "growth" investing and explains such curiosities as why earnings-to-price and book-to-price ratios predict stock returns. By the end of the book, Penman has the intelligent investor thinking like an intelligent accountant, better equipped to handle the bubbles and crashes of our time. For accounting regulators, Penman also prescribes a formula for intelligent accounting reform, engaging with such controversial issues as fair value accounting.