The issues that accountants need to pay attention to in corporate social responsibility projects

Abstract

The concept of corporate social responsibility, which has been developing since the 1990s and particularly emphasized recently, includes the responsibilities of the individuals as well as the corporations. Corporations should consider their stakeholders and the whole society in determining their activities, with the consciousness of serving the society. Entities acting with the corporate social responsibility not only contribute to the social welfare but also increase their value to maintain sustainability. As a result of this, a lot of enterprises show interest and take part in many corporate social responsibility projects or support other activities that will benefit the society. Financial position of the firms is an important factor for their responsibility activities. Accounting provides accurate and reliable financial information about the corporations to help the stakeholders with their decisions regarding the entity. Accountants must act socially responsibly in providing the financial information. Due to the increased competition in the business world, a corporation can differentiate from the others by the way it handles the concept of corporate social responsibility. In evaluating the performance of the business operations, in addition to profitability, corporate social responsibility activities also play an important role. Accountants must embrace the concept of corporate social responsibility and adopt it in their practices, since accounting is one of the basic functions of business. While meeting this responsibility, the accountant should contribute to the economic, legal, ethic, and voluntary responsibilities of the corporation. This paper aims to explain the important position of the accountants and how they should act in the corporate social responsibility projects that become an integral part of the entities.