Today's social relations demand a greater commitment from organizations to the social context in which they carry out their economic activities. This has been a long-term process that has its beginnings since the late nineteenth century, but it is in the last decades of the twentieth century, where the concept of social responsibility has taken a leading role in the management of companies.
Companies must be increasingly responsible for their actions, which is not only about providing some benefits to the social and environmental context where they carry out their activities. This responsibility must be reflected in their accounting process, thus addressing the issue of social accounting.
However, this implies a paradigm shift with respect to the function of the accounting process, because it goes from a purely economic perspective to one where social aspects are an important part of it, thus generating the need to address new ways of observing the world, i.e. the social context in which organizations operate.
It should be noted that in today's world there is a minimum result of corporate social responsibility towards society because they were only dedicated to perform their role, which was mainly economic and financial, leaving aside the social aspect, attributing it to the state as the main responsible; however, in those countries where the International Accounting Standards (IAS) are applied, organizations joined the Anglo-Saxon model, which raises the social responsibility of companies, associated with environmental problems..
This concern for corporate social responsibility has transcended managerial approaches to the study of accounting processes. In this context, it should be noted that there are various definitions and conceptualizations to understand what is meant by social accounting. These definitions are differentiated by the objectives or areas of treatment and by the different economic elements in which they are used.
In this regard, Seldler and Seidler (2009), state that social accounting "is the modification and application of the practices, techniques and discipline of conventional accounting, such as the analysis of alternatives for the resolution of problems of a social nature"; also emphasizing that they are a process of different alternatives of choice to assess how the organization behaves, as well as the social behavior of the company, the development of useful information for the analysis of managers for the evaluation of social behavior and communication of the organization.
In addition, social accounting is dedicated to review the accounting processes of a company from a social perspective, which implies the responsibility of the company for the social effects of its economic activities, therefore, financial reports must go beyond providing information only for the use of the owners
In this sense, social accounting identifies and measures the company's net social contribution in the information it reports annually in its financial statements, helping to determine the company's social policies and practices. Thus, given the relevance of social accounting and its objectives, it can be said that today it can be considered as a paradigm of corporate accounting services.
Reference:
Selder y Seidler (2009). Contabilidad Social..
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