In the critically acclaimed first edition of A Social Critique of Corporate Reporting, David Crowther examined the perceived dialectic around traditional and environmental corporate reporting to show it to be a false dialectic. In this updated edition the conflict between financial performance representing the needs of investors, and other dimensions of performance representing those of other stakeholders, is re-examined. Wider issues relating to company and corporate reporting, particularly in light of the growth in web-based reporting are also considered. The analysis in this book makes use of both statistics and semiotics and in so doing develops a semiology of corporate reporting that offers an alternative to research largely based on econometrics and financial analysis.

David Crowther is Professor of Corporate Social Responsibility and Head of the Centre for Research into Organisational Governance at De Montfort University, UK. He is also Chair of the Social Responsibility Research Network (www.socialresponsibility.biz), a worldwide network with over 600 members, organizer of the series of International Conferences on Corporate Social Responsibility (now in its 12th year) and editor of Social Responsibility Journal. He has published over 40 books and has contributed over 350 articles to academic, business and professional journals and to edited book collections. He has also spoken widely at conferences and seminars and acted as a consultant to a wide range of government, professional and commercial organisations. Professor Crowther's research is into corporate social responsibility with a particular emphasis on the relationship between social, environmental and financial performance.

Contents: Preface to the second edition; The function of corporate reporting; Measuring and reporting performance; Accounting for social and environmental performance; Semiology and statistics: a methodology for analysis; The performance discourse: measurement and evaluation; The environmental discourse: the qualitative evidence; Considering performance: interpretation of the evidence; The future focus of reporting: evidence from semiotic analysis; The semiology of external reporting: an evaluation of the evidence; The future of corporate reporting; Bibliography; Index.