Social accounting and the co-creation of corporate legitimacy

This paper explores how social accounting can generate legitimacy for a company within a local community, and reveals the essential role of the community itself in the process. We take an in-depth case study approach using interviews with both company and community actors, supported by analysis of a nine-year social accounting series. A Bourdieusian frame highlights the unarticulated nature of the roles played by various actors in the co-creation of a local account, and the way that increasing local participation in that accounting process gradually narrates the company into a position of authority. This has lasting impact on the community. Social accounting produces a narrative that acquires symbolic power, directing legitimacy and power to the company, while restructuring the community's social relationships, self-identity, and patterns of accountability. We conceptualise this social accounting process as analogous to mapmaking, iteratively drawing and redrawing the local social geography, prioritising the representation of the company over time in a process of thematic cartography which records growing local acceptance of, and deference to, the company. This has implications for our understanding of the power of account-giving and the impact of social accounting.